How To Train Your Dragon Ebony and Ivory
by Camille94
Summary: Ebony and Ivory. Two colors that have such a connection that they are rarely ever seen apart. The same could be said for our hero Hiccup and his best friend Gemma, you would rarely see one without the other. See how having someone to lean on before Toothless would affect his destiny going forward. What changes also stays the same. Rated T because I am paranoid! I OWN NOTHING!
1. Prologue

Age can say a lot about the type of life someone lived, the wrinkles in their skin tell stories that their lips may have never uttered. Their steps slowed with time, muscles growing thinner under the weight of their experiences and the decisions that will lead them to their final resting place amongst their loved ones since departed.

The young children running down the paths worn into the stone stairs paid little mind to the elder they ran past. Their youth preventing them from truly understanding what days like this mean, to them another elder passed. To her, one of the strongest threads connecting her to this life was just severed.

Her ashen hair was wrapped around her head like a braided crown, standing out against the deep green dress that barely brushed the floor as she walked. On her back, she wore a white fur cloak with dragons stitched in a colorful thread that look like they're dancing across the fabric with every movement. Her body may have been worn with age, bogged down with the weight of time but her eyes were bright with determination. Her emerald eyes held the type of determination that wouldn't be taken away by something as trivial time. She had a destination in mind.

So, she continued to move with slow yet determined steps, her feet knowing the path so well that they were able to take it with practiced ease. She moved until she was in front of a large statue carved into the side of the mountain, the figure growing larger with every step closer. The large figure had been more familiar to her and the families of old than he had been to the families that surrounded her now. Stoick the Vast had been more than just chief to his people, he had been a teacher, a protector, a friend. To her, he had been family and the reason for one of the most important people in her life. He had been a major player in why the lives of the tribe had been shaped into what they are now and though she did look back on the old chief fondly he wasn't the one she was here to see. She offered the statue a warm smile, but she continued to the large wooden doors embedded into the foot of it. The doors had grown heavier with every visit through the years now she required assistance. An ivory paw silently took its place next her withered hand on the door, looking upward into the sapphire eyes of her constant companion, together they pushed the doors open.

The first thing anyone saw when they walked through the door would be the large Gronckle Iron Rumblehorn statue. The hulking statue with topaz crystals for the eyes was to pay homage to Stoick's faithful companion, _Skullcrusher_. She patted the nameplate in respect as she walked passed, continuing forward. At the entrance to her destination, there were two large archways with more Gronckle Iron statues on either side of the arches, each with their nameplates. In the center of the archways four wings from a Stormcutter reaching towards the ceiling with a long-haired woman holding a hooked staff, _Valka and Cloudjumper_. On her left was a Sliquifer hovering over another young woman standing with a trident off to her side _Layla and Wavedancer_. While on the other side was a Hotburple behind a stocky Viking with a hammer for a hand, _Gobber and Grump_.

She walked by more and more reminders of the family that left her behind as she walked under the archways, passing the other statues that were in the incredibly large room that had opened up. The eyes of the original riders looked down at her with every step forward she took, she was all that was left of her family, her and her dragon that is. As the old age caught up with them one by one, their families, their achievements and their stories are all that they have left behind, seeing as their dragons returned to the wild when they returned to Valhalla. She finally reached her destination, the last statue at the end of the path, the one who started it all.

Hiccup.

He had been the last one of the riders, beside herself, to meet Odin in the halls of Valhalla where she could only hope that the others were waiting for her to join them. Lifting her hand, she gently ran her hand over the statue's face, down the scaled armor the statue wore that used to be his, onto the metal head of the dragon that rested under his hand before letting it drop onto the black scaled head of the dragon itself.

Toothless.

Her emerald eyes dropped down to the face of the great scaled beast before her, its own eyes filled with the same sorrow that she was sure was in her gaze. Unlike the other dragons, Toothless had stuck around after his human had passed and she can only guess that it was Hiccup's doing. He would've asked his old friend to stick around until all his friends and family could join him at the table of the Gods. So now it was just her and the two boys, ebony and ivory scales never seen far from each other, always circling. She put the hand that wasn't on the dragon's head to the pendant around her neck, a habit she had developed a long time ago.

A round of coughs racked her old frame and in an instant, there was a warble and a familiar pressure at her side. When the coughs subsided, she looked down into the attentive blue eyes that are always watching. Especially as the years went on the blue eyes, as well as the creature they were attached to, left her side less and less. The trio was broken out of the reverie by little voices coming from just behind the archways where a group of about 12 little ones was hiding with their Terrible Terrors on their backs or in their arms.

"Amma?" The voice came from the front of the pack, a small little boy with light brown hair led the pack of young ones who made their way into the memorial hall. She just smiled in response to the small voice before opening her arms in invitation, that was the signal they needed before all the children came rushing forward.

"What is it Riddley?" She questioned, her voice showing her true fatigue as well as her love for the little one before her.

"Do you miss Afi?" Riddley asked. His own green eyes shining up at her with a burning curiosity that reminded her so much of Hiccup.

"Every day my sweet."

"Do you think Toothless does?"

"I know he does."

"What about Brightscale?"

"He does too." They fired questions and answer back and forth before Riddley got quiet again. His brows creased in thought before he looked up at her again, another burning question on his lips.

"Amma?"

"Yes, little one?"

"Would you tell us the story? The one about how Afi taught us to love dragons?" It was now her turn to be silent, so many memories rushed to the forefront of her mind. Looking down once more to Riddley, who was looking at her with those ever-familiar eyes, before she smiled once again.

"Only if you get the book!" She chuckled as the children all let out a cheer. Riddley nodded ecstatically before running over to grab the book in the crevice at the statue of Hiccup's feet. Toothless and Brightscale used their heads to help lower the aging woman onto the cushions in front of the statue before wrapping themselves around her. The children and their dragons arranged themselves in a circle in front of her while Riddley gently placed a work leather book in her lap and taking his spot in front.

She lovingly rubbed the worn leather cover of a rather large book on her lap, mind repeating the words that she had helped write down between the cover so long ago. Without any further prompting from her audience, the old Dragon Rider opened the book and began to read the words that would transport her back in time.

_**For over three hundred years the Vikings were at war to protect their home island, they had settled within the middle of the Barbaric Archipelago and were known as the Hairy Hooligans. Their island was located twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death where it rested solidly on the Meridian of Misery, that island was called Berk. The enemies that the Hooligans were protecting their home against weren't your normal invaders, no they had to protect their beloved island and its resources against something much more dangerous. Dragons...**_

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_Hey everyone!_

_I am absolutely in love with How to Train Your Dragon and everything about it and all it's accompanying shows/movies and decided that it was my turn to become a part of it. Now just a warning to get out of the way that this is not going to be a Hiccup/Astrid story but instead it is going to be a Hiccup/Oc story but not to worry Astrid lovers! It will also be an Astrid/Oc story! Before anyone says it I absolutely love Hiccstrid and am very happy with how their relationship progressed and think that their kids are adorable! Another quick note is that the Light Fury drawing is one I found on Google from an account named Madpatti so all credit for the wonderful work goes to them._

_Amma- Nordic for grandmother or grandma_

_Asi- Nordic for grandfather or grandpa_

_The updating schedule will depend on the feedback that I get but I will try to have a weekly updating schedule that will be determined once the feedback comes from this chapter._


	2. Chapter 1: Where It All Began

**Hey new friends! Looks like Friday's will be the new update day hopefully everyone will start to enjoy the story!**

**Disclaimer is I own nothing and the story is rated T because there will be some blood, gore, etc.**

**Enjoy!**

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The middle of the night is usually supposed to be filled with the sounds of crickets, the soft snores of those claimed by sleep or maybe the soft crackles of fire in their places warming the houses. Quite possibly the loudest thing that would be disturbing the night would be some fellows stumbling their way through the dark after having a bit too much ale slugging through their system. On most islands that is exactly what would be echoing through the night sky, however...this is Berk.

The sounds of fire crackling were much more intense than when they were heard in the fireplace, followed by the sounds of villagers yelling and loud banging had one boy opening the front door to his house. Once he got the large wooden door open, he made eye contact with a large red dragon, before he slammed the door shut and braced himself against it as the dragon let out a raging torrent of fire.

The boy who nearly got roasted alive was none other than Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and while there was nothing Horrendous about him (though the villagers would beg to differ when it came to his constant inventions) Hiccup described him perfectly. The fifteen-year-old was very scrawny in stature, making him stand out against the rest of the islands bulky Viking inhabitants, meant that most weapons were much too big and heavy for him to handle properly. His small frame was encased with a long green tunic with even darker green pants, a brown fur vest sat atop his tunic with the same fur adorning his boots. With a head full of auburn hair, a face that had an army of freckles marching across it and eyes so green they made emeralds jealous, the young Viking was the son of none other than Stoick the Vast.

Once the firestorm pounding his front door stopped, Hiccup took off into the night, running towards the shouting and roars instead of away from them. Doing his best to avoid the fighting, he ducked and weaved in and around Vikings waving their axes around with bellowing war cries and the claws of angry dragons coming out of the sky trying to grab scared livestock. He was doing well in his marathon until a wayward fireball hit the ground by his feet, knocking him off balance. Before he could even comprehend what happened he was looking up at one of the burly villagers holding up a battle-ax with a war cry ripping through his throat.

"AHHHH!" He yelled in anger before shooting Hiccup a pleasant smile and addressing him in a cheerful tone. "Morning." Without a second glance back at Hiccup continued his charge into the fray of Vikings and dragons.

Hiccup took his opportunity to continue his mad dash towards his destination, ignoring all the orders shouted at him by the rest of the village to go home. What he couldn't ignore, however, was a large hand grabbing him by the scruff of his clothes and yanking him backward and out of the way of a Deadly Nadder's fire stream, he wasn't paying attention to.

Dangling from the hand of a Viking that stood a head above the rest of the village and with shoulders twice as wide. With hair as red as dragon fire that was twisted in a thick braid down his back that matched the ones containing his beard and angry green eyes that matched the ones in Hiccup's head. His head adorned in a metal helmet with incredibly large yak horns to show his status as well as a dark green tunic outlined in chainmail, a brown fur cape, and matching boots. Was none other than Hiccup's father, Stoick the Vast.

"Hiccup! What is he doing out again-? What are you doing out?!" He growled while trying to address the villagers and his son himself as he dropped Hiccup back on the ground. "Get back inside!"

The angry mountain that was Stoick glances to the side just in time to see a green Deadly Nadder with a sheep held in its claws. In one swift movement, Stoick flung an abandoned cart into the dragon, hitting it with ease, which caused the dragon to drop the sheep and fall to the ground below it.

His attention shifted to one of his lifelong friends Fenric, a man that matched him in height but was much slimmer than Stoick even though he was no slouch in the muscle department. "What've we got?" Stoick asked.

"So far, we've only got Gronckles, Nadders, Zipplebacks... oh, and Hoark saw a Monstrous Nightmare," Fenric responded through his light blonde beard while he adjusted his helmet on his head. Angry blue eyes scanning the horizon as an explosion sounded behind them.

"Any Night Furies?" Stoick questioned, ignoring the explosion in favor of brushing a bit of ash off his shoulder.

"None so far."

"Good."

XxXxX

Once Stoick dropped him, Hiccup continued to scamper down the path that was littered with Vikings and weapons. Setting off the giant torches were set ablaze and hoisted up into the sky to illuminate the dozens of dragons flying overhead. Hiccup continued to run until he finally arrived at his destination...the forge.

"How nice of you to join the party!" A large man grunted as Hiccup ran in. The Viking in question was bald under his horned helmet but had a long-braided mustache that hung off of his face. Gobber was his name and he looked like he belonged in the forge, with his peg leg, metal tooth and hammer arm attachment it was hard to see him working anywhere else.

"I thought you'd been carried off."

"What? Me? Nah, come on." Hiccup scoffed as he traded out his fur vest for an apron and moved a large hammer on the rack next to him. "I'm way too muscular for their taste. They wouldn't know what to do with all this." He gestured towards his arm that he was intensely flexing, though he didn't have any muscles to show for it.

"Yeah, Gobber!" A voice snorted from the corner "All those muscles would only fill a newly hatched dragon, so he doesn't have to worry about the adults." The quip came from the corner where a girl was weaving some rope through a pile of round weights to make the bolas.

The girl wasn't much shorter than Hiccup and had the same pale skin that stood out against her dark red long-sleeved tunic that poked out fur vest (picture a sleeveless hoodie but with no hood.) Her blonde hair was so light that it was almost white a looked more like ash after a fire than actual blonde hair. Even though she tried to braid her into two French braided pigtails that connected at the back of her head into a single braided ponytail. Her bangs weren't quite long enough to be pulled back, so they hung in her startling green eyes just below the braided band going across her forehead. The band had a small gold coin that had the Berk crest on it with small blue and green gemstones weaved into the braiding. When she got up, it was revealed that she was also wearing a dark leather skirt over grey leggings and matching brown fur boots that ended just below her metal knee guards.

"You're a barrel of laughs Gem" Hiccup replied dryly.

Gemma was the daughter of Fenric so she and Hiccup grew up together, throughout everything it was known all over the village that wherever Hiccup was you could also find Gemma. Both their mothers were taken from them during different dragon raids like the one they were currently in, adding that none of the other kids wanting to talk to Hiccup, Gemma was a bit protective of him.

"That's true. They do need toothpicks." Gobber jested from where he was sharpening a sword. While Gobber was making and repairing weapons during the raid, he was also tasked with keeping the islands resident troublemakers out of...well trouble. Hiccup had been studying to be Gobber's apprentice for years and while Gemma wasn't really good about getting metal do what she wants to but give her scraps of leather and rope to add to Hiccup's metal making skills and their both constant flow of ideas and you have trouble.

XxXxX

Knowing that his son was now safely inside as the battle continued, Stoick ran down a wooden walkway and continued barking orders at the Vikings that followed him, some with sheep and other livestock in their arms.

"Move to the lower defenses! We'll counter-attack with the catapults!" He ordered.

"Aye!" The Vikings responded as they ran past him. As they ran towards the catapults another house caught on fire, while Berk as a village was as sturdy now as it was when it was built seven generations ago, the buildings were constantly being reconstructed because they always caught on fire during the raids.

XxXxX

While Hiccup and Gemma were stuck inside the forge handing out and repairing both weapons and armor. The other teenagers in the village were set to the task of dousing the houses that the dragons attacked with buckets of water so the fire wouldn't spread.

The first teen with a bucket of water was Fishlegs Ingerman who was an extremely tall but also very chubby boy with bright blue eyes and messy blond hair. The small horned helmet looking as amiss on the top of his head as his skinny legs look underneath his body. The long fur tunic hovering over his green pants and boots made him look sort of like a yak as he ran around.

Right after Fishlegs was Snotlout Jorgenson who, unfortunately, was Hiccup's cousin even though he treated Hiccup worse than yak dung on the bottom of his boot. What Snotlout lacked in height he made up for in strength, even at such a young age muscle clung to his shorter frame. His ram horned helmet sat upon a mess of black hair that was positioned in a way that they were just hanging out of the way of his ocean blue eyes. With a black fur shirt covering most of his yellow sleeveless tunic it was the giant belt buckle of his family crest that was the most stand out part of his outfit.

Tuffnut and Ruffnut Thorston come running up after even though they'd much rather have caused the fire than put it out. Both of the twins had incredibly long blond hair and blue eyes though Ruffnut's eyes are lighter and her hair was in three braids, two on the side of her head and one going down her back, while Tuffnut's hair hung loose. They were also wearing similar outfits with the same four-horned helmets, though Ruffnut had thinner horns, and necklaces that looked like they were probably made out of dragon fangs.

Ruffnut wore a dark blue tunic that had a long brown vest over it that went all the way passed her brown skirt and dark brown leggings. She had dark gray wraps going up to her forearm until they stopped at her elbow and started between her two middle fingers. With her upper arms being wrapped with a leather band.

Tuffnut also wore a dark brown vest over his pale green tunic held up with a sash looking belt. His gray pants with his dark brown fur boots much like the rest of the clan. He also had the brown arm guards that started at his wrist and ended at his elbow.

Ramsey Magnus was the tallest of the teens with lean muscles that made him obviously more muscular than Hiccup but not as muscular as Snotlout or Fishlegs. Shaggy dark red hair was kept in a small ponytail at the top of his head with his bangs in two braids off the right side of his head. His honey-colored eyes taking up an almost amber as the fire reflected off the irises. A leather vest was pulled over his dark blue short-sleeved shirt with the same leather acting as arm guards. Gray pants fell to his matching leather knee guards and fur boots.

The one who had stolen Hiccup's attention out of the bunch was Astrid Hofferson. She had long blonde hair that was braided down her back though like Gemma her bangs seemed to do nothing but escape the braid and leather band across her forehead to rest haphazardly above her ice-blue eyes. Wearing a blue shirt that matched her eyes, a dark almost red leather skirt and dark purple leggings, her entire outfit was adorned with spikes and bird looking skulls. Metal plates rested on her shoulder and cloth arm guards that went from between her fingers to her elbows completed the warrior look. This was one of the rare times that her trusty battle ax has been traded out for the water bucket that she was currently holding as she ran towards the fire.

Gemma saw what or really who had caught Hiccup's attention as she was walking by, rolling her eyes she dropped the bola she was holding onto his foot. Hiccup yelped at the sudden sharp weight on his foot, yanking it upwards into his hand and hopping around on one leg.

"Why would you do that!?" Hiccup cried.

"I was worried that a dragon might mistake your mouth for a cave with how wide it is open and try to escape through it," Gemma responded dryly before bending down and picking up the bola.

"I can't help it; their job is so much cooler than ours!" Hiccup sighed putting his head on his hand. "How great would it be to be one of them?"

"Probably not as great as you think. I mean we get close enough to fire in here without it coming out of a dragon's mouth." Gemma stated thoughtfully dropping the bola on a windowsill where it was snatched up almost instantly by a large Viking.

Hiccup thought about Gemma's words while looking out the window at the battle until Gobber came up behind him and Hiccup found himself dangling from the scruff of his clothing for the second time that night.

"Oh, come on, let me out please," Hiccup begged Gobber as he was put down back in front of his station. "I need to make my mark!"

"You've already made plenty of marks, all in the wrong places," Gobber stated.

"Please, just give me two minutes, I'll kill a dragon my life will get infinitely better I might even get a date!" Hiccup insisted.

"You want a date with someone who either ignores you or smacks you with the butt of her ax? You need to raise your standards higher than that!" Gemma scoffed starting to wrap some leather around the handle of a war hammer.

"You can't lift a hammer; you can't swing an ax." Gobber counted off on his fingers. "You can't even throw one of these." Gobber lifted another bola that a Viking snatched from his hand.

"Okay, fine but this will throw it for me." Hiccup argued motioning to one of his inventions.

"Oh, gods here we go." Gemma sighed with a shake of her head before snapping it up again "Is that what you wanted me to make all those bolas for!?"

Hiccup moved over to where the Bola Launcher, his newest invention, was stationed off to the side of the workshop. Patting his creation, however, triggered something and sent a bola launching a bola through the forge that Gemma avoided by ducking and that sailed inches past Gobber's head and out the window into the head of an unsuspecting Viking.

"See right here is what I'm talking about!" Gobber announced stalking towards Hiccup with a look of exasperation.

"Minor calibration error…" Hiccup tried to reason before Gobber cut him off.

"Hiccup if you want to get out there and fight those dragons, you have to stop being all...this." Gobber waved his hand ambiguously at Hiccup's front.

"But you just pointed to all of me." Hiccup said.

"Yes, that's it stops being all of you," Gobber replied a little happier that Hiccup seemed to get his message.

"Oh okay, you are playing a dangerous game keeping all this raw Vikingness contained," Hiccup threatened pointing his finger at Gobber with a voice that was trying to sound stern. "There will be consequences!"

"I think I'll take my chances. Sword. Sharpen. Now!" Gobber ordered dropping a large sword in Hiccup's hand that he was barely able to lift. Wordlessly, Gemma stopped what she was doing to come over and help her friend with his struggle.

"One, two, three." Gemma counted down before she and Hiccup combined their efforts and placed the sword in the sharpener.

"Thanks for the help." Hiccup stated as Gemma moved back to what she was doing.

"Whatever you need." She responded with a smile.

XxXxX

Outside was just as chaotic as ever, the dragons were skulking around every corner looking for any hint of the livestock that the village had done their best to hide, a group of Deadly Nadders picked up a few stray sheep that had wandered away from their hiding spot. Some Gronckles busied themselves by grabbing the drying racks that had some fish on it and a Zippleback breathed gas into a building through the roof before the other head opened the door and sparked it. Stoick had taken up a post with some of his men on one of the catapults that were elevated on a platform when the explosion that the Zippleback had set off followed by the panicked call of the sheep had informed him of the current situation.

"They found the sheep!" Fenric yelled up to Stoick.

"Concentrate over the lower bank!" Stoick barked out as he leaped to the floor of the catapult so he could help move it into the correct position. One of the Vikings hit the release lever to launch a large boulder towards a flock of dragons that were glittering around.

Stoick moves towards the ledge of the tower, shoulders tense and eyes sharp looking for any kind of movement. He wasn't disappointed, down below him the base of the tower was covered in the fire that was moving upwards quickly. Just as Stoick readied his hammer, a Monstrous Nightmare burst forward completely engulfed in flames, yellow eyes in angry slits as it reared its head back at Stoick.

"Reload! I'll take care of this!" Stoick states with an icy calm to the men around him.

Before the Monstrous Nightmare could react Stoick slammed his hammer down right on the large dragon's head. Recovering quickly, the Nightmare snapped its jaws at Stoick who quickly dodged out of the way and slammed his hammer down again.

Stoick and the Monstrous Nightmare froze their battle mid-attack as a high-pitched whistling echoed through the night sky causing everyone in the immediate area to freeze as well when the sound reached their ears. The Nightmare took this opportunity to retreat from its battle with Stoick and go off to get more livestock.

"Night Fury!" Fenric yelled in warning "Get down!"

Every Viking within earshot and range of a shield threw them up over their head and their neighbors head. Two catapult towers simultaneously exploded in a flash of purple-ish blue light before fire consumed the entire structure.

One of the towers that exploded happened to be the one that Stoick and Fenric were standing below.

"Jump!" Stoick ordered as he followed the others off of the quickly crumbling structure.

The Night Fury was the most dangerous dragon that the Vikings of Berk had ever heard of, the fact is that they had only ever heard of it. It had never once been seen in any of the night raids, the only tell that it was even around would-be high-pitched whistling that took over the air right before the fires broke out. The dragon never stole any food, never actually attacked any of the Vikings just went after weaponry, and never missed its target. There were strange times where it looked like the telltale purple blast exploded in the sky, not seeming to hit anything but it made the dragons react, so it was thought to be a signal of some sort.

The whistling brought Hiccup running over to the window to see what was happening outside right as the towers exploded and collapsed. immediately ran over to the window and looked outside, just as the tower collapsed.

"You two, man the fort, they need me out there," Gobber ordered as he switched his hammer appendage for an ax one. Making his way out of the forge he stopped to look directly at Hiccup. "Stay. Put. There."

With a battle cry, Gobber jumped into the fray with the other Vikings and as soon as he was out of sight Hiccup grabbed his bola launcher.

"You can't be serious Hiccup," Gemma questioned exasperatedly crossing her arms over her arms and standing in front of the machine.

"Of course, I'm serious! Just think about how much better our lives would be!" Hiccup responded.

"You mean how great your life will be? You killing a dragon doesn't affect my standing in the tribe" Gemma argued.

"You know I'd never leave you behind! But I'm going so are you coming or not?" Gemma and Hiccup stared at each other with hard green eyes but neither of them was willing to give in.

"Fine but you're taking all the blame when your father wants to skin us alive." Gemma relented breaking eye contact to grab a broken spear off her worktable. The spear once had a long blade and was attached to a long pole but during one of the raids the pole, it was mounted on snapped. Instead of getting rid of the weapon, Gemma wrapped some leather on the broken end to act as a handle, so the weapon was the size of a long dagger.

"Great, let's go!" Hiccup agreed, leading the way out of the forge and up the hill behind it that had a good look at the sky above the village, avoiding dragons and other villagers as they went, the ladder telling them to get back inside. Hiccup was quick to open up his invention and focus on the night sky. "Come on, give me something to shoot at."

There was the telltale screech in the air before another catapult exploded on their left and another blast of fire went off to their right but that one didn't seem to hit anything. Hiccup could see a faint outline as the explosion illuminated the sky briefly. Hiccup fired the bola launcher where he saw the figure headed but the recoil of the machine threw him backward on the ground. Gemma ran to help him and as she hauled him to his feet the two of them could head a screech and could see the faint black outline plummet into the forest. Another cry emanated from the sky before the area was quiet again, the duo looked at each other in shock.

"I can't believe that the hunk of junk worked." Gemma gasped with a loom of shock on her face.

"I hit it...yes, I hit it!" Hiccup cheered whirling around in circles with his arms raised in triumph. "Did anybody else see that?!" A growl answered him before Gemma could, whirling the duo saw a large Monstrous Nightmare making its way towards them as it stepped on the bola launcher and crushed it. "Except for you," Hiccup said grabbing Gemma's arm and pulling her into a run as the Nightmare gave chase.

They tried to make their way back towards the forge, but the Nightmare was gaining on them fast. Gemma, being the slightly more coordinated of the two, soon was leading the way and pulling Hiccup forward by his grip on her wrist. She suddenly was pulled backward and upwards by Hiccup's hand on her wrist before said hand was ripped away.

"Gemma!" Hiccup yelled as he was lifted off the ground, the Nightmare had snagged the back of his fur vest and started shaking him back and forth.

"Hiccup!" Gemma flew into action quickly looking around for a week spot she could reach before her eyes landed on the dragon's large hind leg. "Stay there! I have an idea!"

"Very funny!" Gemma shifted her weight on the balls of her feet and when the Nightmare swung Hiccup to the left, she ducked under his flailing limbs and the dragon's wing. She slammed her spearhead as deep into the dragon's leg as she could before ripping it out to go for a second shot. The Monstrous Nightmare let Hiccup go mid shake, so the small boy went flying forward, the dragon snapped its head down to Gemma and lunged at her. She was able to jump over the open jaws but wasn't able to take more than a few hurried steps forward before something hit her back and sent her flying forward into a pillar.

Hiccup looked up just in time to see Gemma get whipped forward with by the Nightmare's tail and sent flying. When the dragon opened its maw and began gathering fire it was Hiccup who went into action, looking around he saw a discarded shield a few feet to his left. Hiccup threw himself forward to grab the shield and had just enough time to curl himself and Gemma behind it before the Nightmare unleashed its fire. The torrent of fire seemed never-ending until a low rumbling echoed through the sky and just as quickly as the fire started. It stopped. Whatever the rumbling was, it caused all the dragons to retreat whether they had managed to pick up livestock or not.

Peeking up from behind the shield to make sure that the dragon had indeed gone away he quickly dropped the now burned metal to turn and help Gemma up.

"You okay Gem?" He asked putting his arms under her elbow to help her up.

"Just because it doesn't have a bludgeon on the end of it doesn't make the tail hurt any less." She coughed shaking her head a bit. "Doesn't look like anyone has seen us yet though. Think we can make it back to the forge without your dad noticing?"

"If we hurry, we still have a chance." But before they could even take a step, the pillar they were standing behind groaned and toppled over, throwing the giant torch on top of it to crash down the pathways that led down to the dock. The duo had closed their eyes and winced whenever the torch hit something on the way down. Opening their eyes, the came face to face with not only Stoick but Fenric and Gobber as well while the other villagers glared at them.

"What are you two doing out here?!" Stoick snarled causing the two teens to wince at the tone of his voice.

"Hitting a Night Fury with my bola launcher…" Hiccup explained quickly before he was picked up by the scruff of his clothes for the fourth time that night and Stoick dragged him through the crowd "It's not like the last few times, Dad! I really, actually hit it!"

"He did Chief! We saw it go down near Raven's Point!" Gemma tried to back him up as she followed closely behind only to be grabbed by her father.

"Not another word Gemma," Fenric growled with a glare of his own, Gemma wanted to say something back but held her tongue and lowered her eyes.

"You guys were busy, and I had a clear shot. It went down off Raven Point as Gemma said. Let's get a search party…" Hiccup had continued to explain before Stoick angrily cut him off.

"Stop!" Stoick yelled, dropping Hiccup and whirling around to face him "Just. Stop. Every time you step outside, disaster follows. Can you not see that I have bigger problems? Winter is almost here, and I have an entire village to feed!"

"Between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding." Hiccup tried to joke to lighten the mood but all it did was make Stoick angrier and cause Gemma to cover her eyes with her hand.

"This isn't a joke, Hiccup!" Stoick sighed defeatedly for a second before continuing "Why can't you follow the simplest of orders?"

"I can't stop myself. I see a dragon and I have to just kill it. It's who I am, dad" Hiccup tried to explain.

Stoick put his hand on his forehead to stop a headache from happening right then and there "You're many things, Hiccup. But a dragon killer is not one of them. Get back to the house." this time he addressed Gobber who walked up behind Hiccup and swatted him on the back of the head. "Make sure he gets there. I have his mess to clean up."

Gemma tried to make a move to follow them before a stern hand on her shoulder stopped her and directed her in another direction. "Not you Gemma. Our home. Now." Fenric admonished. Gemma glared back defiantly into her father's eyes, green and blue started at each other for a long time before a low cough got her attention. When she glanced over to see where the noise came from, Hiccup was giving her a defeated head shake to tell her not to fight it.

"Yes sir" she ground out before storming through the crowd towards their house, making sure to slam her shoulders into both of the twins who were laughing hysterically at her and Hiccup.

"Quite the performance." Tuffnut ragged.

"I've never seen anyone mess up that badly. That helped." Snotlout snarked while the twins and he continued to laugh. Fishlegs had a forced smile on his face while Ramsey and Astrid were leaned up against some boulders just watching the scene unfold.

"Thank you, thank you. I was trying." Hiccup sighed as he walked past. Gobber shoved Snotlout out of the way and onto the ground by his helmet as he walked by.

"I really did hit one." Hiccup said to Gobber.

"Sure, you did Hiccup"

"He never listens."

"It runs in the family."

"When he does, it's with this disappointed scowl, like someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich." reaching the front door of his house, Hiccup turned towards Gobber "Excuse me, barmaid. You brought me the wrong offspring. I ordered an extra-large boy with beefy arms, extra guts and glory on the side. This here, this is a talking fishbone" Hiccup mimicked.

"You're thinking about this all wrong. It's not so much what you look like, it's what's inside that he can't stand." Gobber tried to comfort when Hiccup was done ranting.

"Thank you for summing that up." Hiccup replied dryly.

"Look, the point is, stop trying so hard to be something you're not." Gobber rephrased gently.

"I just want to be one of you guys." Hiccup sighed sadly going into the house and closing the door, only to run through the house and out the back door into the forest and since Gemma knew that he wasn't going to let this go she snuck out soon after to follow him.

XxXxX

Stoick was leading a meeting in the Great Hall where the rest of the village was crammed inside as they talked about what they were going to do next about the dragons.

"Either we finish them, or they'll finish us!" Stoick proclaimed loudly to be heard over everyone that was talking over each other. "It's the only way we'll be rid of them," Stoick slammed a hand down on the table to emphasize his point. "If we find the nest and destroy it the dragons will leave. They'll find another home." Stoick plunged a knife into the unexplored region of the map in front of him. The uncharted area was covered in nothing but thick fog and dragons. "One more search before the ice sets in!"

"Those ships never come back!" A Viking in the back called.

"We're Vikings it's an occupational hazard! Now, who's with me?" Stoick announced but everyone avoided eye contact with the Chief and muttered excuses under their breath. "All right!" Stoick decided standing up from where he was hunched over the map. "Those who stay will look after Hiccup." At hearing that particular name every hand in the room shot out to volunteer. "Now that's more like it."

The meeting was over soon after with everyone going off to prepare for the journey aside from Gobber and Fenric who were stationed near the back of the room.

"I'll pack my undies," Gobber stated lifting himself off of the bench to head towards his house then Stoick stopped him.

"No, I need you to stay and train some new recruits," Stoick ordered. Gobber rolled his eyes and began to adjust his arm attachment.

"Perfect and while I'm busy, Hiccup can cover the stall! Molten steel, razor-sharp blades, lots of time to himself… what could possibly go wrong?" Gobber listed off sarcastically. "Better yet. Leave Gemma in charge of him I'm sure that'll solve all the problems." The last part was directed at Fenric who was as adamant as Stoick about keeping his daughter as far away from the dragons as possible.

"What do you propose to do with him, Gobber?" Stoick sighed.

"Put him in training," Gobber suggested.

"No, I'm serious!" Stoick groaned.

"So am I," Gobber answered.

"And what do you suppose we do with Gemma then?" Fenric interrupted.

"Put her in to" Gobber replied nonchalantly.

"They'd be killed before you let the first dragon out of its cage." Stoick rebutted.

"Oh, yeh don't know that," Gobber reassured dismissively as he faced his drink.

"I do, actually."

"No yen don't."

"Yes, I do."

"No, yeh don't!"

"You know what he's like…He doesn't listen… he has the attention span of a sparrow… I take him fishing and he goes hunting for… for trolls!" Stoick sighed exasperatedly.

"Trolls exist! They steal yer socks. But only the left ones. What's with that?" Gobber argued.

"When I was a boy-." Stoick started to say.

"Here we go," Gobber muttered under his breath making eye contact with Fenric.

"My father told me to bash my head against a rock and I did it. I thought he was crazy, but I did it anyway. And you know what happened?" Stoick continued.

"You got a headache," Gobber answered sarcastically.

"That rock split in two. It… it taught me what a Viking can do, Gobber. He can crush mountains, level forests, tame seas! Even as a boy I knew what I was what I had to become, and Hiccup is not that boy." Stoick said.

"Gobber is right Stoick," Fenric interjected realizing that no matter how much he didn't want to admit it there was going to be no stopping his daughter. "It isn't just about Hiccup; Gemma will follow that boy of yours wherever he goes and with their record so far it has led nowhere but trouble. Since there isn't any way we could forbid them from seeing each other they should at least have knowledge that they could use to defend themselves."

"You can't stop him, Stoick. You can only prepare him." Goober agreed firmly. "I know it seems hopeless, but the truth is you won't always be around to protect him. He's going to get out there again! He's probably out there now!" Stoick could do nothing but sigh as he gave what his old friends said with deep thought.

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**So there is the first official chapter! Please read and review so I actually know people are actually enjoying the story I am writing! Thanks!**


	3. Chapter 2: Search for Fury

**Welcome back Dragon Riders! Chapter 2 is a go! I am going to apologize in advance for how much shorter this is chapter is than the first two but I am trying to capture about ten minutes of the film at a time or where I think a good transition between chapters is so sorry for the inconsistency. Hopefully, everyone is enjoying the story and if you are don't be afraid of the review button!**

**On with the story!**

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Hiccup continued his search for the downed dragon well into the middle of the afternoon with Gemma trailing a ways behind him. Having searched at least half of the forest by Raven's Point, Hiccup sighed angrily before pulling out his notebook and scratched another X into the map he'd drawn before slamming it closed again.

"The gods must hate me." Hiccup sighed as he placed his notebook back in his vest. "Some people lose their knife, or a mug, not me. I manage to lose an entire dragon!" Hiccup grumbled as he swatted away a tree branch, but the branch ended up hitting him in the face.

Looking up at the branch angrily he was surprised to see that the tree had been violently been ripped in half by something. Looking passed the tree he could see that there was a large skid mark running across the ground until it disappeared over the crest of the hill he was standing on. Looking down the hill carefully, Hiccup could just make out the tangled-up form of a dragon mixed with the bola from his launcher. The Night Fury.

The Night Fury looked nothing like Hiccup, or the other Vikings had expected from a dragon that they all feared. This dragon was relatively small or at least smaller than say a Monstrous Nightmare, it was covered in ebony scales so dark that it wasn't a surprise that it was never seen. Six appendages covered the crown of its head with two being much longer than the others, its ears if Hiccup had to guess, spines started down its head down its back until it split from one row to two when it got to the rail. With large wings and an extremely long tail, the dragon overall was still very intimidating but seeing as it was wrapped tight in the bola that it wasn't moving gave Hiccup confidence.

"Oh, wow I did it. I actually did it! This fixes everything! Yes!" Hiccup cheered placing a foot triumphantly on top of the black dragon. "I have brought down this mighty beast!"

At the sudden pressure on its scales, the Night Fury jerked away with a groan making Hiccup stumble backward into the rock with a startled yelp. The dragon's large eyes opened a bit to reveal dark green irises, Hiccup took another step back in surprise. Hiccup grabbed the small knife that he kept on his waist and held it toward the dragon with shaking hands.

Gemma had caught up at this point and was looking over the ridge to find out where Hiccup was, only to gasp when she saw him standing over an entangled black dragon with a knife in the air.

"He found it," she whispered to herself. Taking in the dragon's pitiful position stirred up a bit of empathy in her but she quickly pushed it down. "Hiccup earned this. Whatever it is he's going to do he worked hard for it." And with that, she settled down on the ridge crest to watch until it looked like Hiccup needed help.

"I'm gonna kill you, dragon. I'm-I'm gonna cut out your heart and take it to my father. I'm a Viking." Hiccup announced pointing the blade of his knife downward and taking a steadying breath. "I'm a Viking!"

Hiccup opened one eye and once again met the green eyes of the Night Fury; Hiccup shook his head to clear the thoughts of mercy that were making their way in. Hiccup took more steadying breaths because each time that he looked down at the dragon he could feel doubt creeping in. At his final glance, before he was going to let the knife fly downwards, the Night Fury closed its eyes and put his head down, resigning himself to his fate. That was all it took. Hiccup lowered the knife back down to his side, all determination draining out of him instantaneously and all that was left was self-loathing.

"I did this..." Hiccup sighed as he stepped away from the dragon.

Upon the ridge, Gemma let out a silent breath when Hiccup slow took the knife from above his head and put it down to his side. She couldn't describe it but much like Hiccup seemed to feel, killing a dragon just sit right with her all of a sudden. Hiccup had decided to use the knife to cut away at the ropes surrounding the dragon instead of cutting the dragon itself. When the ropes started to fall away, the Night Fury's eyes snapped open and it moved faster than either teen could react. The Night Fury pounced on him and had him pinned down with a paw glaring down at him.

Gemma was about to move and go help when a snort above followed the soft movement of breath against her hair made her freeze. Ever so slowly she turned her body around until she was face to face with a dragon herself. Unlike the Night Fury, this dragon has ivory scales that covered it from nose to tail, instead of spines lining its back it had almost a fin-like appendage running down the back of its head, disappearing a bit before reemerging down his back. It also had two fewer appendages between the long ones that look like ears and a pair of sky-blue eyes.

In mirror images, the two teens found them staring into the eyes of incredibly dangerous dragons. Dragons that looked at them like they were trying to understand something instead of like they were looking at their next meal. The Night Fury decided something because its wings flared outwards and its eyes narrowed into slits. Opening its mouth, it released an ear-shattering roar right in Hiccup's face (which is ultimately better than the face full of fire or teeth he was expecting) before deciding it got its message across. Whipping around, the dragon opened its wings and took off into the forest, though it didn't seem to be able to fly straight. Hiccup stayed on the ground until the Night Fury was out of sight before he slowly got up and grabbing his discarded knife. He was only able to take a few steps before the adrenaline left his system and he fell to the ground unconscious.

The white Night Fury had also been paying attention to the scene down below them, when it sounded like the black Night Fury had left is when blue eyes averted from the green ones they were staring into. Glancing to see the black dragon free and the boy on the ground, the white dragon's eyes narrowed into slits before it snarled and dug the claws that were closest to Gemma's head into the earth before spreading its wings and taking off in the direction the black Night Fury went.

It took Gemma several seconds to regain the breath that the dragon scared out of her before she practically fell down the hill to get to where Hiccup was laying. After checking that still did indeed have a pulse, she put his knife in her boot and proceeded to put as much of her friend on her back as she could before beginning the ordeal of dragging him back to the village.

Luckily for Gemma, Hiccup regained consciousness halfway up the hill and was able to climb up the rest of the way himself. When they reached the top of the hill Hiccup began interrogating Gemma about what she was doing there.

"Oh, come on Hiccup how long have we known each other?" She rolled her eyes. "I knew you were going to be out here looking for that dragon as soon as your front door closed so I decided to follow you in case you needed help. Which I'm glad I did since you almost got eaten." Gemma scoffed.

"Yes, you were very helpful with that considering I didn't see you at all when I was facing a mouth full of teeth," Hiccup resounded dryly.

"I got a little tied up when I went to help. Not to mention we don't know if me showing up would've made it eat you." Gemma pointed out hoisting herself over a fallen log and holding out a hand to help Hiccup do the same.

"Can you believe I found it though Gem?!" Hiccup exclaimed ignoring what she just said. "I had it right there! That would've been the answer to all my problems…" he sighed. "I finally discovered what a Night Fury looked like and let it get away."

"The Night Fury isn't the only thing we found Hiccup." Gemma stared. Hiccup turned to her with a mix of curiosity and confusion "While you were staring down the throat of the black Night Fury a white one came up behind me. That's why I wasn't able to come to help you." Gemma explained.

"A white Night Fury? Like an albino?" Hiccup questioned but Gemma shook her head, brows furrowed.

"I don't think so, it didn't look albino because its eyes were blue, not red. I'm not even sure that it was a Night Fury at all, there were too many differences in the way they looked."

"Guess there's no way to tell now. They both disappeared so the danger has passed" Hiccup sighed once more.

"Well, not all the danger…" Hiccup looked at her in confusion "We weren't in the house when our dads came home…"

"Oh, gods…"

XxXxX

The two of them snuck back as quickly as they could but instead of heading home they went to the forge. Thinking that maybe their fathers would think they were there working when they came to the houses and found them empty.

"What're you going to do about your bola launcher?" Gemma questioned after they had been working companionable silence for a while both focused on their projects.

"What do you mean?" Hiccup asked from where he was stoking the fire.

"Are you going to rebuild it and try to catch another dragon?" Gemma sliced some leather into strips to make handles for the swords laid out in front of her. "I mean sure the Night Fury would've been the best one you could've gotten but you catching any dragon would be impressive."

Hiccup pulled the ax he was working on out of the fire and started to pound away at the scorching metal while he contemplated her question. "No, I don't think I will."

Gemma felt like she already knew the answer, but she prompted him anyway. "Don't think you'll rebuild the launcher or don't think you'll kill a dragon?"

Hiccup stopped his work and looked down at his hands "I don't think I can kill dragons Gem if they all look that helpless before we're supposed to kill them than I don't think I have it in me."

"Good," Gemma decreed wrapping one of the leather strips around a sword handle.

"Good?"

"I've never been able to picture you taking another life, even the life a dragon" Gemma continued also stopping her work.

"Yeah, I'm sure that'll make dad super proud. The son of the chief unable to take the life of a dragon. Spectacular." Hiccup muttered angrily.

"There'll just have to be another reason for him to be proud of you,"

Hiccup had a snarky response he was going to throw her way when his father walked through the door to the forge with a grim expression on his face. Stoick marched through the door and locked his gaze immediately fell upon his son as soon as he was in the room.

"Son, I need to speak with you."

Knowing the conversation, they were most likely about to have was inevitable, Hiccup mentally took a deep breath before responding. "I have something I should tell you too."

"Do you need me to leave sir?" Gemma spoke up before the talk could get any more serious, she was surprised when Stoick shook his head.

"No, this outcome affects you as well Gemma," Stoick explained before giving his full attention back to Hiccup, after a brief pause of trying to figure out who was going to start talking first, they both started talking together.

"I've decided I don't want to fight dragons."

"I think it's time you learned to fight dragons."

"What?" They asked together before pausing again so they wouldn't continue to talk over each other.

"You first." Stoick offered.

"No, you go first." Hiccup insisted.

"Alright!" Stoick accepted looking at his son. "You get your wish. You start Dragon Training in the morning. You too Gemma."

"Oh man, I should've gone first!" Hiccup panicked sharing a look with Gemma who was just as confused as he was. "Uh, cause I was thinking you know we have a surplus of Dragon Fighting Vikings, but do we have enough...Bread Making Vikings? Or Small Home Repair Vikings-?"

"You're going to need this." Stoick handed Hiccup an ax that was almost the same size as him, the weight of it making him stumble a bit as he tried not to drop it.

"I don't want to fight dragons," Hiccup repeated.

"Yes, you do." Stoick laughed at Hiccup's response in disbelief.

"Rephrase," Hiccup muttered trying to keep his father's attention on what he was saying. "Dad I can't kill dragons!"

"But you will kill dragons!" Stoick rebutted.

"No, I'm very extra sure I won't kill dragons." Hiccup argued.

"Look, this is serious son." Stoick interrupted looking down at Hiccup and picking up the ax. "When you carry this ax, you carry all of us with you." He dropped the ax back in Hiccup's arms.

"That is a lot of pressure on someone who can't even lift said ax." Gemma murmured.

"Which means you walk like us, you talk like us, you think like us. No more of…" Stoick listed waving a hand at Hiccup. "…This."

"You just gestured to all of me." Hiccup stated.

"Deal?" Stoick asked ignoring his sons' statement.

"This conversation is feeling very one-sided," Hiccup added.

"Deal!" Stoick asked with more force.

"Deal!" Hiccup sighed.

"Good!" Stoick replied in satisfaction turning to leave the forge. "Train hard and I'll be back… probably." Signaling that this was his last stop before he headed out on that one last scouting mission for the nest.

"Alright then, I'll be here… maybe." Hiccup stammered uncomfortably. When Stoick was out of sight Hiccup angrily dropped the ax onto the floor and stormed away. "This is just perfect!"

"Well that's an interesting turn of events," Gemma said picking up the ax and putting it on the table.

"What should I do?" Hiccup groaned burying his head in his arms.

"What WE will do is survive," Gemma stated, "and figure the rest of it out as we go."

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**And there we have it! I will see everyone next Friday and I hope that you enjoyed the chapter!**

**End of chapter question: If you were an actual Dragon Rider, what dragon would you ride and what would their name be?**


	4. Chapter 3: First Date With the Arena!

**Chapter 4: First Date With the Arena!**

**Here we are back to another chapter! I'll just go straight into the chapter and I hope that people start letting me know if they're enjoying the story or not...oh well! Onward...after a few short authors notes.**

**Answer to the question in the previous chapter~ Obviously my dragon would be a Light Fury and the name will be coming in an upcoming chapter!**

**Disclaimer~ I own nothing!**

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"Welcome to Dragon Training!" Gobber announced leading the platoon of recruits into the dragon fighting arena after he lifted the gate.

The teens trailed in after him with Astrid leading the way with her trusty battle ax followed by Ramsey who was toting around a bag medicinal herbs along with his dual war hammers after Ramsey came Snotlout with his mace, Fishlegs with his stone hammer, and the twins with their hooked spears. All the teens had various looks of determination on their faces as they looked around at the rattling doors holding dragons behind them.

"No turning back," Astrid muttered to herself.

"Let's hope it doesn't get so bad I'll have to use this stuff." Ramsey chuckled dropping his supplies off to the side.

"Are you crazy? I hope I get some serious burns." Tuffnut grinned maniacally.

"I'm hoping for some mauling like on my shoulder or lower back," Ruffnut added.

"You want to get mauled and burned and I'm the crazy one?" Ramsey scoffed.

"Well, it is only fun if you get a scar out of it," Astrid stated bumping her shoulder against his to which he rolled his eyes in response.

"Yeah no kidding," Hiccup inserted lamely revealing that he and Gemma had been trailing behind them. "Pain love it." He stuttered trying to hold his ax and shield at the same time.

"Who let them in?" Tuffnut groaned.

"I needed a way to stab you and make it look like an accident," Gemma replied dryly crossing her hands over her chest.

"How're you going to stab anything with half a weapon?" Snotlout taunted.

"Come over here and I'll show you." Gemma threatened with narrowed eyes, causing Snotlout to gulp.

"Okay Snotlout, don't make me have to sew you up before the fighting even starts," Ramsey interjected smacking the back of his head and moving between him and Gemma, Ramsey held his hands up in a gesture of surrender to show he wasn't trying to start something.

"Let's get started!" Gobber interrupted not paying the fighting much attention. "The recruit who does best will get the honor of killing their first dragon in front of the entire village." He explained twisting his hook for emphasis.

"Hiccup already killed a Night Fury so does that disqualify him?" Snotlout taunted making the twins laugh along with him.

"Yeah, can I transfer to the class with the cool Vikings?" Tuffnut added.

Gobber hung back as the other teens continued to walk ahead of them and patted Hiccup on the shoulder to offer some reassurance.

"Don't worry you're small and you're weak. That'll make you less of a target! They'll see you as weak or insane and go after the more Viking-like teens instead." Gobber stated happily before walking away while Hiccup rolled his eyes Gemma shook her head.

"Use your speed and the things in the arena to your advantage," Gemma advised nodding towards the weapons that littered the arena. Gobber began pacing in front of the surrounding gates as the duo joined the line with the other teens.

"In these doors are just a few of the many species that you will learn to fight," Gobber announced the dragons as he passed their gates. "The Deadly Nadder,"

"Speed eight, armor sixteen." Fishlegs listed.

"The Hideous Zippleback." Gobber continued.

"Eleven stealth times two." This continued for every dragon that Gobber listed off and Fishlegs would come back with a statistic about it.

"The Monstrous Nightmare."

"Fire-Power fifteen."

"The Terrible Terror."

"Attack eight, venom twelve-"

"Would you stop that!" Gobber bellowed finally getting tired of Fishlegs and his statistics. He paused at the handle on the wall near the last gate holding the dragon they hadn't heard about yet. "And the Gronkle."

"Jaw strength eight," Fishlegs whispered to Hiccup.

"Ramsey, you will sit this lesson out. Your focus will be on learning to take care of the Vikings who come out of here with injuries." Gobber instructed. Ramsey sighed in disappointment but walked over to stand next to Gobber.

"Whoa wait! Aren't you gonna teach us first?" Snotlout shouted one disbelief taking a step forward.

"I believe in learning on the job." Without another word, Gobber dropped the lever and the light brown Gronckle burst from the cage as fast as its hummingbird wings could flap. The second that the dragon was out in the arena, the teens scattered to get out of its way as it ran into a wall.

"Today is about survival...or in your case, learning how to treat the ones who manage to survive" Gobber stated looking over at Ramsey before turning back to the scene in front of him, "If you get blasted" the Gronckle picked up some discarded rocks from the ground and quickly chewed and swallowed them before lighting up its fire.

"If you get blasted, you're dead. Now, what's the first thing you're going to need?" Gobber asked.

"A funeral ship?" Gemma voiced.

"A Doctor?" Hiccup guessed next.

"Plus, five-speed?" Fishlegs asked frantically.

"A shield!" Astrid answered coolly. Calculating how long it would take her to enact the next lesson.

"Yes, a shield! Go!" Gobber ordered, sending the Viking teens into a scramble. "If you had to choose between a sword and a shield, take the shield," Gobber explained picking up the shield Hiccup was struggling with and shoving it his arms before shoving him towards the fight.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut both saw a shield at the same time so naturally, they went to grab it at the same time. Of course, as soon as their hands both touched the shield painted with skulls and fire on it, they began to wrestle over it.

"Get your hands off my shield!" Tuffnut demanded.

"There are like a million shields!" Ruffnut argued.

"Take that one it has a flower on it. Girls like flowers." Tuffnut motioning to a shield of to their side.

Ruffnut wrenched the shield out of her brother's hold and proceeded to slam it down on his head.

"Oops, now this one has blood on it." Ruffnut mimicked with a smirk.

Tuffnut grabbed the shield again and continued to try and wrestle it out of his sister's hands, neither noticing that they had gotten the Gronckle's attention and it was flying directly for them. The Gronckle opened its mouth and fired a lava blast at them, luckily it only hit the shield they were holding, causing it to explode in a rain of wood and metal.

"Tuffnut, Ruffnut, you're out!" Gobber yelled.

"Check them over for burns or wood and metal shrapnel. Bloodmoss to seal wounds, Honeysuckle to draw out foreign objects or infections." Ramsey listed pulling out a book to write it down. "And check Tuffnut for a concussion…Ribleaf for swelling," he added as a second thought.

Gobber nodded along with what Ramsey was saying before turning back to the teens on the battlefield. "Those shields are good for another thing. Noise. Make lots of it it'll throw off a dragon's aim!" Not needing any more prompting, the teens started slamming their weapons against the shields, the Gronckle's ears started twitching in all directions and it looked like it was having a hard time concentrating on a target. "All dragons have a limited number of shots!" Gobber added. "How much does a Gronckle have?"

"Five?" Snotlout guessed.

"No six!" Fishlegs interrupted raising his hand in brief excitement.

"Correct six! With the twins out that means there is one left for each of ya!" Gobber answered just as the Gronckle fired another lava blast at Fishlegs' shield, which splintered on impact. "Fishlegs out!"

The explosion and the proximity to the fire caused Fishlegs to let out a scream and run away in fair.

"Hiccup, get it there!" Gobber called out while the remaining students tried to keep the Gronckle's attention off them.

Hiccup made to move out from behind the barrier he was hiding behind when Gemma vaulted over the same barrier, followed soon after by a lava blast slamming into the same barrier. Hiccup jumped at the sudden attack and pulled his shield up to cover his and Gemma's heads.

While Hiccup and Gemma had the Gronckle's attention, Snotlout was trying his hand at wooing Astrid while she remained focused on the movements of the dragon.

"So anyway, uh I moved into my parents' basement. You should come by sometime and work out you look like you work out." Snotlout was saying before he was interrupted by Astrid silently cartwheeling away from him. He couldn't react to everything happening so quickly and was caught off guard when a lava blast hit the shield he had been holding and threw him to the ground.

"Snotlout you're done!" Gobber yelled.

"Make sure Snotlout only has a bruised jaw, chew on Trollfoot to reduce pain." Ramsey listed to himself, Gobber wasn't exactly sure what he was saying but it sounded right so he continued to nod along.

When Astrid came out of her cartwheel, she was standing next to Hiccup and Gemma, who had managed to avoid the Gronckle that was ramming itself into the barriers it had last seen them behind.

"So, I guess it's just you, me and Gemma huh?" He tried to start a conversation.

"No just you two," Astrid replied before diving into a somersault, Hiccup was startled by her reaction and the hand that grabbed the back of his shirt. Gemma had simultaneously yanked the back of Hiccup's shirt and shoved forward her left hand that had the shield in it to cover Hiccup so he wouldn't get hit by the lava blast. Gemma grunted in pain when the blast wrenched her wrist back and sent the shield flying from her grasp.

"Come back in Gemma," Gobber ordered.

Seeing as the shield was his closest line of defense, when it got blasted out of Gemma's hand Hiccup ran after it. Since he was the only thing moving however, he ended up grabbing Gronckle's undivided attention.

"One shot left." Gobber reminded the two remaining contestants while Hiccup continued to run after the rolling shield.

"Hiccup!" Gobber and Gemma yelled together as the Gronckle managed to pin him against the wall.

Hiccup could only look away in preparation for the fire that the Gronckle was about to rain down on him while it hovered in front of him with its mouth open, gathering fire in the back of its throat. Luckily, Gobber hooked his metal appendage into the corner of the Gronckle's mouth just in time to yank and cause the dragon to shoot its fire just to the left of Hiccup's head.

"And that's six," Gobber muttered pulling the angry Gronckle back towards its cage. "Go back to bed yeh overgrown sausage!" He swung the Gronckle around and used the momentum so that when he took his hook out it still flew back into the cage.

"Yeh'll get another chance don't you worry." Gobber he assured the dragon before turning to look at the panting teens while Ramsey started looking them over. "Remember, a dragon will always… always…" Glancing down at Hiccup while he lifted him off the ground. "Always go for the kill. Okay anyone Ramsey gives a clean bill of health to we'll see you tomorrow."

After the quick once over, Ramsey followed Astrid and the others out of the arena, leaving Gemma and Hiccup to stare at each other and the residual heat of the lava blast on the wall.

"So why didn't you?" Hiccup muttered to himself as he bent down to inspect the pieces of the bola he cut off of the dragon.

While the others went along to do other things, the dynamic duo had made their way from the Dragon Training Arena to where they last saw the dragons the previous day, near Raven's Point.

"Why didn't it what?" Gemma questioned rubbing some of the burn creams Ramsey gave her onto her injured left wrist and flexing her fingers.

"You sure you're okay Gem?" Hiccup asked guiltily looking at his friend's wound. He felt if he hadn't been trying to show off to Astrid, Gemma wouldn't have been hurt.

"Sure am! No lasting damage and doesn't affect my grip strength." Gemma assured making a fist to prove her point. "Now what were you rambling on about before?"

"If dragons always go for the kill like Gobber said," Hiccup started lifting the metal ball that was attached to the bola "Why didn't the Night Fury kill me when I set it free? Or the albino Night Fury kill you when it snuck up on you and had you cornered?"

"I keep telling you it was NOT an albino Night Fury!" Gemma griped crossing her arms. "It had more differences than the color."

"So, if it isn't an albino Night Fury what're you going to call it then? A Day Fury? Or maybe a Bright Fury?" Hiccup argued, Gemma glared at him for a second before her face turned thoughtful.

"Whatever name it gets is going to be better than those." She snorted.

"Anyway," Hiccup interrupted giving her a pointed look "These two dragons had us cornered but instead gave us what seemed like a warning before flying away."

"But the ones in the arena attack us as soon as they're let out of their cages," Gemma added picking up on Hiccup's train of thought.

"Where they're brought into the arena and know they're going to be attacked with no way out…"

"...as opposed to being able to try and scare us off and fly away."

"We need to find those dragons!" Hiccup stated rushing off towards where he saw the Night Fury take off.

"But how do we know that the dragons are even here!?" Gemma called after him as she fell into step behind him.

"When the Night Fury took off it was wobbling and looking like it wasn't able to fly straight. There is no way a dragon that fast and who eluded us for years would be able to do all that when not being able to fly straight."

"You're placing a lot of faith in some theory about a dragon nobody has ever seen until now."

"Well, we have to start somewhere." Hiccup replied as he lowered himself down a large gap in some rocks.

"We're going to die," Gemma groaned positioning herself to slide into the hole after him.

"Be positive."

"I'm positive we're going to die."

Slowly but surely, they made their way down the rock wall of what turned into what looked like a cove of some sort. The trees grew high among the rock ledges and there was a large pond in the center of the area with fish swimming around in it. As they got closer to the edge of the rocky outcropping, they were standing on something on the ground caught Hiccup's attention. Kneeling to inspect the item closer what he picked up was dark obsidian black and relatively smooth to the touch. Dragon scales.

"So, we know it at least came this way." Hiccup started bringing the scale closer to his face.

"But where is it now?" Gemma questioned.

The Night Fury decides to answer her question when its figure rushed by the so suddenly from under the ledge that it caused the two of them to stumble backward in surprise. The dragon tried to scramble up the sheer rock face of the cove but quickly lost its grip. With a roar of frustration, it opened its wings as it fell and soared across the pond to land on the opposite embankment.

Hiccup and Gem shared a silent look before they both moved forward to climb down a few more rocks to get onto a lower overhang for a better look. Again, the Night Fury flapped its large wings in an attempt to fly up and out of the cove but only succeeded in hitting a wall and falling back to the ground. Hiccup slowly and quietly moved aside his fur vest to reach his charcoal pencil and his notebook and began to start sketching the dragon.

"So, we found one dragon but where is the other one?" Gemma quizzed only to have her question once again answered when said white dragon descended from the sky above them with some fish in its jaws that it plopped down in front of the Night Fury. The Night Fury in response snorted before turning away from the pile of food and launching itself at another side of the cove. "It's bringing the Night Fury food?"

"Why doesn't it just fly and get its own food?" Hiccup wondered as he finished drawing in time for the black dragon to plummet to the ground once more.

"It can't. Look." Gemma pointed towards the dragons. The white one was nudging the black one up with its head and Gemma was pointing where their tails were lined up. The Night Fury's tail was noticeably different, it was missing one of the fins.

Hiccup glanced down at his drawing where he had just automatically drawn the dragon with both halves of its tail fin. Realizing his mistake, he used his hand to erase that portion of the tail to make the drawing more accurate. The two of them went back to observing the dragons, the white one sat next to the pile of fish and almost seemed to roll its eyes as the black one tried to catch fish from the pond himself without any luck.

"It had to have had that part of its tail the night of the raid. Do you think it may have gotten ripped off when you shot it down?" Gemma asked to which Hiccup groaned.

"Perfect. I was not only unable to kill it after I shot it but when I let it go, I end up leaving it grounded." He rubbed a hand over his face, but the action caused the pencil he was holding to slip out of his hand and start to fall down the rock face.

The pencil dropped down the rock face and landed on the ground with enough force to take the dragon's attention away from where the white dragon was trying to make the black dragon some fish. The two dragons looked up at the teenagers in unison, pinning them in place with a gaze of emerald and sapphire. The posture they fell into wasn't aggressive per se, more of a cautious but also curious stance as they waited to see what move the intruders made. Not taking their eyes off of the scaled beasts, the two small Vikings slowly backed away from the ledge and didn't take their eyes off the entrance to the cove until they were safely above its walls.

"So, we found the dragon," Gemma stated still in a state of shock at what they saw.

"Uh-huh…" Hiccup muttered in disbelief.

"And since it can't fly it probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon."

"Yup."

"Which probably means the white one isn't going anywhere."

"Probably."

"So, what's our next move?" That gave Hiccup pause.

"I'm not sure…" he said. "I do know that whatever we do we can't let anyone find those dragons.

The walk back to the village started fine but soon turned into a soggy trek when the clouds opened up and unleashed a downpour upon them. By the time Hiccup and Gemma made it to the Great Hall, Gobber and the other teens were already deep in conversation about what happened earlier in the arena.

"Alright, where did Astrid go wrong in the ring today?" Gobber asked the Viking teens.

"I mistimed my somersault dive. It was sloppy. It threw off my reverse-tumble." Astrid answered without any hesitation.

"Yeah, we noticed," Ruffnut commented.

"No, you were great it was so Astrid." Snotlout tried to praise.

"She's right you have to be tough on yourself." Gobber admonished before noticing Hiccup and Gemma sit at the table next to the group. "Where did Hiccup go wrong?"

"Uh, he showed up," Ruffnut suggested with a laugh.

"He didn't get eaten," Tuffnut added.

"Says the two who were out first." Gemma snorted.

"He wasn't where he should be." Astrid interrupted with a roll of her eyes to which Gemma glared at her.

"And where did Gemma go wrong in the arena?" Gobber prompted to which she sent a glare at Snotlout and the twins daring them to say anything.

"She spent to much time watching Hiccup's back and not enough time watching her own," Ramsey spoke up from his place next to Astrid.

"Thank you, Astrid and Ramsey!" Gobber nodded while he smacked the twins in the head. "It is important to be able to reflect on what you did wrong so that you don't make the same mistake twice." Gobber pulled out a book from his vest and slammed it down on the table in front of the teens. "The Book of Dragons. Everything we know about every dragon we know of is in this book." Thunder rumbled heavily outside signaling that the rain was coming down hard and probably not going anywhere anytime soon "No attacks tonight study up." Gobber instructed and with that, he walked away from the table.

"Wait, you mean read?" Tuffnut yelped as if the book bit him.

"While we're still alive?" Ruffnut added making a face of disgust.

"Why read the words when you can kill the stuff the words tell you stuff about?" Snotlout announced banging his fist against the tabletop.

"Because those words will tell you how to kill it without it killing you instead," Ramsey rolled his eyes.

"Oh! I've read it like seven times." Fishlegs stayed excitedly, not noticing the odd looks he was getting from the rest of the table. "There's this water dragon that sprays boiling water at your face and there's this other dragon that buries itself for like a week-"

"Yeah, that sounds great and there's a chance I was going to read it..." Tuffnut interrupted Fishlegs.

"But now..." Ruffnut continued wanting the conversation to be over with.

"How about this you guys go read while I kill something?" Snotlout suggested before pulling himself up and storming out of the Great Hall.

Fishlegs and the twins followed suit while Ramsey hung back at the table with Astrid, who was being approached by Hiccup and Gemma.

"That's going to get them killed," Gemma snorted perching herself on the bench in front of the book.

"Least we won't have to worry about their future generations getting killed the same way," Ramsey chuckled.

"So, I guess we'll have to share." Hiccup gesturing to the book in between the four of them.

"Read it!" Astrid snapped shoving the book in their direction before following the path the others took out of the Great Hall, Ramsey gave the two a shrug before following after Astrid.

"Great all ours then so I'll see you-." Hiccup stammered but didn't bother continuing when the doors slammed shut. "Oh, who am I kidding no matter what I'll do she'll never be into me."

"I think she's just giving you more reasons you shouldn't be into her. She's a great warrior true but she has no desire to get to know you so why would you want to date someone like that?" Gemma grumbled.

As the Great Hall emptied, Gemma and Hiccup gathered some candles together to warm up and have enough light to read the Dragon Manual.

"Dragon Classifications." Hiccup read out loud. "Stoker Class, Boulder Class, Sharp, Tidal, Mystery, and Strike."

"Thunderdrum," Gemma started turning to a page with a dragon with a wide, flat body, two sets of wings and a long tail with spikes all over its body. "This reclusive dragon inhabits sea caves and dark tide pools. When startled the Thunderdrum produces a concussive sound that can kill a man in close range. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight."

Hiccup flipped a few pages to show a dragon with a long serpentine body that had a line of short spikes covering it from head to tail, a huge wingspan that had each wing ending in a hook-like appendage and two large horns with tendrils coming out of its chin. "Timberjack this gigantic creature has razor-sharp wings that can slice through full-grown trees. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight."

Hiccup then flipped a few more pages and Gemma started reading again. This time about a dragon with short legs, extremely long neck, thick tail that ended in a whale fin, large round body and large nasal horn. "Scauldron sprays boiling water at its victims. Extremely dangerous..."

A sudden thunder crash ripped Hiccup and Gemma out of their stupor and caused them to let out a yell in surprise when the wind through the large wooden door of the Great Hall. After a few deep breaths to call themselves, the duo turned back to the book and continued reading.

The next page revealed another quadrupedal dragon with long wings and tail, large claws and long leaf-like appendages coming off of its sharp cheeks. "Changewing. Even newly hatched dragons can spray acid. Kill on sight." Hiccup read the next paragraph.

"Gronckle... Hideous Zippleback... the Skrill... Boneknapper. Whispering Death" Hiccup continued listing off all the different types of dragons within the two leather covers, all of them giving the same time warning. "Burns its victims, buries its victims, chokes its victims, turns its victims inside out."

"Extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous, kill on sight, kill on sight, kill on sight." Gemma and Hiccup chorused.

Hiccup continued to flip through the book until he stumbled upon a page that was empty except for the name of the dragon. "Night Fury, Speed: Unknown, Size: Unknown." He read with a tremble in his voice.

"The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Never engage this dragon. You're only chance: hide and pray it does not find you." Gemma whispered.

Hiccup paused for a moment before pulling his sketch of the Night Fury and placing it on the book before turning to Gemma with a confused look.

"None of this makes sense!" He groaned "When facing dragons if our two options are, kill on sight or hide and pray it doesn't find us why did they let us go?"

"That's an answer we aren't going to find in that book." Gemma stated grimly "What do you want to do?"

"Tomorrow we go back to the cove and study them ourselves." Hiccup answered sternly closing the book with a hard slam.

"And hope they decide not to kill us?"

"And hope they decide not to kill us."

"Super…"

* * *

**That is the end of the chapter my little Dragonlings! I hope everyone enjoyed!**

**Question time: What weapon would you favor if you were a Viking?**


	5. Chapter 4: Baby Flaps

**Chapter 4: Baby Flaps!**

**I can't do much more than apologize about the inconsistent updates but life and depression has gotten the best of me but I am trying not to let it get to me but enough of the depressing stuff! Thank you for all the understanding! On with the chapter!**

**Answer to the question in the previous chapter~ Aside from the weapons that I have already given Gemma I think I would personally be partial to a bow and arrow combo!**

**Disclaimer~ I own nothing!**

* * *

What Gobber had planned for his students the next day was something nobody had been expecting. Wooden walls and pillars had been put up in the shape of a maze that the Viking teens were currently hiding behind trying to hide from a large blue Deadly Nadder. Gobber watched the teens run around in a panic through the metal chain dome of the arena...well everyone but Hiccup, who was standing underneath Gobber. Choosing to try and pry into Gobber's Night Fury knowledge as opposed to paying attention to the dragon that was currently chasing his classmates around.

"Hey, you know I just happened to notice the book had nothing on Night Furies," Hiccup questioned trying to seem as uninterested as possible. "Is there another book, or a sequel? Or maybe just a Night Fury pamphlet?" Gobber wasn't able to give him any sort of answer when a burst of fire burnt through the blade of his ax.

"Focus Hiccup! You're not even trying!" Gobber called down, ignoring Hiccup's question. "Today is all about the attack!" Gobber announced the same time Hiccup started to run away from the Nadder, which roared when it noticed him and jumped on top of the walls to keep an eye on him. "Nadders are quick and light on their feet, your job is to be quicker and lighter!"

Ramsey had picked a plain brown shield and was trying to use it as a form of camouflage by hiding behind it and hugging himself as close to the wall. His plan worked a little too well though, when the Nadder spotted Gemma and started shooting fire at her, Gemma ended up tripping over the shield as she ran by.

"What in the name of Thor?" Gemma hissed quickly pulling herself up off of the ground "why are you hiding in a dead-end?"

Ramsey pulled his head out from behind the shield just enough to address her without hopefully getting the dragon's attention before answering her.

"If it can't see me then I can sneak up on it easier," Ramsey said, a roar cut off Gemma's response as the Nadder continued its pursuit.

"Let's hope it works," Gemma stated before taking a few steps back and running forward, jumping off of his shield and using it to vault herself to the other side of the wall. The Deadly Nadder's tail spines chasing after her as they embedded themselves in the wall and Ramsey's shield.

"Most dragons can use more than just their fire to attack. Nadder's are dangerous from both ends!" Gobber announced as the Nadder tried to follow Gemma.

The Deadly Nadder spotted Fishlegs as he ran by a gap in the walls and used that opportunity to extend spines from its tail and fire. Fishlegs was able to bring his shield up in time to block the spines before he continued to scream and run away.

"I'm really beginning to question your teaching methods!" Fishlegs yelled as he ran into one of the walls in all his frantic movements.

"Look for its blind spot. Every dragon has one. Find it, hide in it, and strike!" Gobber coached with a bored tone of voice.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut zigzagged through the course but still ended up coming face to face with the Deadly Nadder. Freezing, the dragon came inches away from Tuffnut's face but for some reason didn't attack, it seemed to be looking for them.

"Do you ever bathe?" Ruffnut snorted in disgust as she and Tuffnut continued to move with the Nadder's head to keep in the blind spot.

"If you don't like it then get your own blind spot." Tuffnut snapped jabbing at his sister with his elbow.

"How 'bout I give you one!" Ruffnut growler back slamming her helmet into her brothers.

The struggle for the dragon's blind spot got more aggressive which made it easier for the Nadder to pinpoint where the twins were. It roared before unleashing a hot stream of fire at the general area it thought its enemies were. The twins had just enough time to duck out of the way before they were off running down the maze again.

"Blindspot yes, deaf spot not so much," Gobber commented as Hiccup stopped hiding and stood in front of him again.

"Hey, Gobber, how exactly would one sneak up on a Night Fury?" Hiccup asked curiously.

"No one's ever met one and lived to tell the tale. Now go!" Gobber ordered trying to end the conversation but Hiccup wasn't done yet.

"I know, I know but hypothetically-" Hiccup tried to continue before a voice interrupted him.

"Hiccup!" Astrid whispered harshly, Hiccup turned around to see her, Ramsey and Snotlout kneeling behind a wall with their shields up for protection. "Get down."

Since Astrid was at the front of the pack, she peeked around the corner of the wall they were hiding behind to see the Deadly Nadder hunched low to ground and creeping towards them slowly. When the Nadder looked around a different corner Astrid, Ramsey and Snotlout took the opportunity to quietly roll behind the next barrier. Hiccup tried to follow suit, but he was weighed down by his shield, so he got stuck on his back. The noise instantly caught the attention of the Deadly Nadder, the dragon jumped on the wall closest to it and used the height advantage to see where the other three were hiding.

"Watch out babe, I'll take care of this." Snotlout said confidently getting in Astrid's way. He threw the mace in his hand towards the rampaging dragon, but he missed, and the weapon bounced harmlessly off a barricade. Astrid shot him a glare before running knowing that the angry dragon would be charging at them. "The sun was in my eyes, Astrid!" Snotlout insisted after Astrid's retreating form while the Nadder shot fire. "What do you want me to do? Block out the sun?"

Snotlout continued to prattle on while the Deadly Nadder decided to pursue Astrid as its next target. Astrid could hear the beast following her, so she took the next available sharp turn which the dragon crashed into as it tried to follow her. With each sharp turn, Astrid made the Nadder crash into more walls and it wasn't long before the maze started falling down around them, causing the other students to take cover.

Oblivious to the massacre that was happening behind him, Hiccup continued asking Gobber questions and about Night Fury's.

"Has anyone ever seen one napping?" He questioned.

"Hiccup!" Gemma yelled and tried to make a grab for him, but Ramsey kept shoving her away from the dragon. Finally turning to see what the commotion was about; he could see Astrid jumping from the tops of the walls trying to get out of the maze with the Nadder following her and knocking the walls down as it went.

"HICCUP!" Astrid screamed as the wall she was standing on got knocked out from underneath her, she fell on top of Hiccup and got her ax stuck in his shield.

"Ooh, love on the battlefield." Tuffnut taunted from where he and Ruffnut were hidden.

"She could do better," Ruffnut added.

Astrid jumped to her feet quickly trying to pull her ax from the wooden shield but when that didn't work, she placed her foot on Hiccup's face for leverage. Just as the dragon was about to bite down on the duo, Astrid yanked the shield off Hiccup's arm and used her ax to slam the shield into the dragon's face. The Deadly Nadder retreated back to its pen after the attack and once they were out of danger, Astrid turned her glare on Hiccup.

"Is this some kind of a joke to you?" Astrid snapped. "Our parent's war is about to become ours." She pointed the blade of her ax down at Hiccup. "Figure out which side you're on."

Gemma kicked the blade the ax away from Hiccup and used the moment to slam her shoulder into Astrid, pushing the other girl off-balance and way from Hiccup. "What happened to never raise a blade to an ally?" Gemma snarled, meeting Astrid icy glare with a matching one of her own. Astrid glared harder at the questioning of her honor as a warrior, she raised her ax again in the silent challenge of a dual which Gemma met with a raise of her own spearhead.

"All right guys cool it," Ramsey stated stepping in between the two angry parties but when they refused to lower their weapons he continued. "We're supposed to be fighting the dragons. Not each other." There was silence and more glaring before Astrid slowly lowered her weapon with Gemma following her lead.

"Okay, kids we're done for the day. Meet back here tomorrow at the same time." Gobber finally intervened herding the twins and Snotlout out if the arena. Ramsey placed a hand on Astrid's shoulder and pulled back a bit, finally severing the staredown, as she turned to follow him and the rest of them out of the arena.

"Well, that was...fun?" Hiccup muttered from his place on the ground, Gemma rolled her eyes and extended her hand out for him to take.

"Let's just get out of here and go to cove already" she ordered hauling Hiccup to his feet. Nodding in agreement, the duo snuck out of the arena and into the forest to see a cove about a dragon.

Getting to the cove was no problem for the duo since it didn't take long to find again, getting down there without alerting the unseen dragons of their presence was a different story. Hiccup went down first with a shield in one hand and a large fish in the other, Gemma decided to hang back to observe and hopefully help Hiccup avoid ambush.

"I'll cover you from back here," Gemma assured, perching herself on a rock that could give her a view of the surrounding area.

"If you were gunna do that shouldn't you have brought some long-distance weapons?" Hiccup wondered looking down at her spearhead and the pair of karambit her father gave her that dangled from her belt.

"I could always test my accuracy out by throwing them at you if you want?" Gemma offered with an arched eyebrow.

"No that's not necessary!" Hiccup backpedaled "How're you planning on interacting with the white one if it shows up?" He questioned looking for inspiration.

"Doing whatever doesn't get you eaten!" She grinned widely at him.

"Thanks for the support" he deadpanned before taking a deep breath "wish me luck"

"You'll be fine," she assured.

Hiccup took some tentative steps down the last part of the ledge until his foot hit the floor of the cove. He scrambled forward and hid behind some rocks with the shield in front of him. When he wasn't immediately obliterated, he threw the fish out in front of him as far as he was able to. When nothing happened yet again, he tried to venture out of his tiny rock fortress...only for the shield to get stuck in the opening between the rocks.

"Such grace" Gemma sighed quietly as she continued to watch Hiccup slink forward.

When his furious yanking at the shield didn't dislodge it from its prison, he let out a sigh before crawling under the shield and picking the fish off of the ground. Taking a few more steps deeper into the cove Hiccup couldn't help but feel like there were more eyes on him than just Gemma's. Glancing back up to where he left his friend, he could see that she was in a tense crouch with her spearhead in one hand and her other hand on her knives. When they met eyes, she moved her head off towards the left ever so slightly, Hiccup let out a small gasp when he saw the Night Fury slinking down the rock it was taking refuge behind. Hiccup's breathing became a bit more erratic when the Night Fury fell into a defensive position and bared its teeth at him. Taking a deep breath, Hiccup extended the fish out as a peace offering for the dragon to take but the dragon responded by growling at it and taking a step backward.

Hiccup could only stare in confusion at the hostility when he noticed the dragon's stare wasn't on him exactly but more focused on something to Hiccup's right. The knife in his belt gently moved against his side as he moved giving Hiccup an idea. Carefully, Hiccup opened his vest, so the knife was in plain view, noting the way dragon's angry snarls intensified, before slowly reaching down towards the weapon. The Night Fury watched him wearily as he removed the knife and dropped it to the ground before taking it one step further and using his foot to kick the offending object into the pond.

As soon as the knife was out of arm's reach it was like the fight seemed to have gone out of the Night Fury. The Night Fury dropped out of its defensive position almost instantly, wings relaxing, what Hiccup thought was the dragon's ears lifted up from its skull, and most notably the pupils nestled in the bright green irises dilated, making it look almost innocent.

Hiccup took cues from the Night Fury's body language and slowly brought the fish up as an offering. The Night Fury slowly crept forward hesitantly until it was close enough to extend its mouth forward, upon opening its mouth it gave Hiccup a front-row seat to its bright pink gums.

"Toothless?" Hiccup muttered to himself in confusion. "I could've sworn you had-" his thought was cut off midway when twin rows of sharp teeth extended out from the dragon's gums and snatched the fish out of Hiccup's hand, nearly taking the handoff of the human. "-teeth!" Hiccup gulped in fear.

When the fish had disappeared down its throat the Night Fury turned its attention back to Hiccup, tilting its head like it was studying him, before taking a few steps towards the human who took steps backward in kind until he was cornered against a large rock.

"I-I don't have anymore." Hiccup stuttered, his hand coming up as a defense to the attack he was sure was inevitable.

Gemma tensed further, jumping onto the balls of her feet ready to jump to her friend's defense but something made her pause. The Night Fury raised his head to the sky just as a gagging sound started, after a few flexes of its neck the dragon regurgitated half the fish it had just eaten onto Hiccup's lap.

"Eew..." Hiccup groaned wincing down at the half-digested fish carcass on his lap.

Hiccup met the large curious eyes of the Night Fury as it lifted its forelegs off the ground and sat on its haunches like it was waiting to see what the human was going to do next. When Hiccup didn't react the way the Night Fury wanted to do, the Night Fury sent a look at Hiccup before looking back down at the fish on his lap. Hiccup looked from the dragon before following its gaze to the fish, realization dawned on him what the dragon wanted. With a groan, Hiccup slowly took the saliva covered fish in his hands before letting out a sigh and hesitantly cutting into it with his teeth.

"Oh, that is nasty," Gemma winced in disgust. She took her observations about the behavior between Hiccup and the dragon so far and stabbed her weapons into the ground next to her feet before grabbing the fish she had brought along with her while jumping to a lower ledge.

Hiccup raised the fish up for the Night Fury to see while he held the fish pieces in his mouth while trying to look like he was enjoying it, but the Night Fury wasn't believing the ruse. The dragon made a swallowing motion, Hiccup's shoulders dropped as he figured out what was going to happen next. Reluctantly, Hiccup swallowed the fish like the dragon wanted while trying to fight the urge to throw it back up as it was sliding down his throat.

"Ugh..." He groaned when he was finally finished.

Hiccup gazed back at the dragon with a weak smile plastered on his face, the dragon studied him for a bit before raising the corners of its own mouth with the teeth sheathed back in its gums, enacting its own version of a smile. Taking the dragon's actions as non-hostile, Hiccup slowly got to his feet and moved forward with his hand outstretched to try and touch the Night Fury. The ebony dragon growled an angry warning at Hiccup but once again chose to fly to the other side of the pond as opposed to attacking the human boy.

"That didn't go like I hoped," Hiccup muttered.

"I mean it didn't eat you so what more could you really be hoping for?" Gemma called out in a low voice as to not disrupt the dragon.

"What were you doing that entire time?" Hiccup hissed in irritation as he looked up at her.

"Did you forget that we have a whole other dragon to be worrying about? We also aren't sure it is as friendly as him," Gemma reasoned looking down at her friend.

"How do you know it's a boy?" Hiccup questioned her with a funny look.

"I really need to explain how to tell if something is a boy or not?" Gemma teased with a raised eyebrow.

"What!? No! I mean it doesn't look like it has any obvious...boy parts…" Hiccup stammered as a blush crept up his neck.

"Its upper body seems a lot more muscular than the female dragons that I have seen," she paused with a large smile "not to mention the females are a lot meaner."

"If you say so," Hiccup rolled his eyes.

"What is the next part of your master plan?" Gemma asked curiously.

"Continue to do whatever I can to make him trust me." Hiccup answered resolutely.

"Not a bad plan," Gemma reaffirmed. "Though if you want him to trust you sooner you should try calling him something other than Night Fury."

Her statement gave Hiccup pause as he scrambled to think of a name to call the dragon. "Toothless."

"Excuse me?"

"His name," Hiccup decided "His name is Toothless."

"You're going to name one of the most dangerous dragons Vikings have ever encountered," she paused for dramatic effect "Toothless?"

"What you think you could come up with a better name?" Hiccup countered placing his hands over his chest. Gemma glared at the blatant challenge and opened her mouth to fire back a remark only to stop when nothing came immediately to mind.

"Actually no," she relented "Toothless it is."

"What're you going to do?" Hiccup asked after savoring his victory for a few seconds, Gemma pondered the question for a minute before answering.

"Continue to look for his friend." She stated with an equally determined look on her face, the two friends nodded at each other before going about their plans.

Hiccup slowly made his way over to where the Night Fury, or Toothless as he had been named, had landed and watched carefully as the dragon torched the ground as he turned in a circle before lying down in the heated nest, he made for himself. While the dragon was focused on his task, Hiccup was able to sit down incredibly close to where the Toothless had made the circle. Toothless was briefly surprised when he looked up to see the human boy so close to him after the surprise wore off the dragon just rolled his eyes and whipped his tail around to cover his face.

Hiccup slowly outstretched his hand towards the dragon's tail which was suddenly yanked out of reach when the tail was raised. The second the dragon's face was shown, Hiccup jumped to his feet and turned to casually walk away. The Night Fury rolled his eyes again before walking over to a low hanging tree branch and wrapping his tail around it while his wings cocooned around him.

"I've got my work cut out for me," Hiccup sighed before sitting down on a log to think about his next move.

Gemma was having a different type of problem than Hiccup, her problem was there wasn't a dragon in sight! Yet she couldn't help but feel like she was being watched from somewhere and the creaking of a branch, whenever she got close to a certain area, let her know that she probably wasn't alone.

"I don't understand how a dragon with such bright scales can hide in broad daylight!" She groaned while waving the fish around in irritation.

She froze when something off to her left rustled causing her head to snap in that direction. Taking a step forward there was another noise but this time it was from a few feet directly above her head. Slowly, she looked up above her and tried not to scream when a pair of blue eyes looked back at her...just the blue eyes. Out of reflex she skittered backward but ended up tripping over something and falling on her butt. The blue eyes descended her down to the ground with the rest of its body fading into existence scale by scale, revealing the white dragon she had been hunting for.

"Okay, I don't think that's something the Night Fury can do…" Gemma gasped taking in the new dragon's arrival. Now that she was up close, she could definitely see the small differences between this dragon and the Night Fury Hiccup was trying not to get eaten by. For starters, this dragon's appendages that sat around the crown of its head were a bit closer together and it was lacking the small pair that sat between the two longer ear flaps. Also, from what she could see of the tail that was slowly swaying back and forth, there was an extremely small pair of fins directly above the tail fins. There was a dorsal fin that ran along its spine where the Night Fury had dorsal plates. What intrigued Gemma the most was that the dragon's scales weren't completely white like she had originally thought. Now that they were face to face, she could see the extremely light silver/blue markings that danced across its body. Sparkling in the sun as each scale seemed to repel more of the sun's rays than it absorbed. She was so entranced by the look of the scales that she momentarily forgot the situation she had just found herself in and reached her hand forward to touch the scales.

"Yikes!" She yelped, just managing to yank her hand backward out of the way of the mouth that had descended upon it. "Sorry! I got it! No touching!" The dragon snorted in what she could only guess was agreement seeing as there was no doubt in her mind that the dragon could've taken her hand off if it had really wanted to. That snapping was just a warning.

It was when the dragon kept growling at her lowly with its slit eyes, she remembered what the fish in her hand was actually for. Deciding to use what she learned from Hiccup's interaction, she braced herself before bringing the cold fish to her lips and taking a large bite out of the side of it. Grimacing the entire time, she chewed and swallowed, she then offered the fish out for the dragon. Her actions surprised the dragon, causing its eyes to dilate as it studied the offering, taking a sniff of the fish before it gently took the fish and ate it. Gemma had to clamp a hand on her mouth so the cheer that was building in her throat didn't scare off the dragon and ruin her success thus far. The dragon looked at her with large eyes for a moment before snorting gently and jumping back into a large tree above her. Not bothering to do whatever it had done previously to make itself invisible, it just settled down on a thick branch and began scanning the horizon. Keeping watch over the Night Fury if Gemma had to guess seeing as even with the bright scales it still blended in with the daytime sky much better than the other black scaled dragon.

Looking over at Hiccup and seeing that he was having a similar problem cemented the fact that neither of them was going anywhere anytime soon. With a sigh, she settled herself amongst the reeds of an opposing tree trunk and prepared herself to wait.

As the sun began to set both Hiccup and Gemma had yet to move from their stations since they took up their posts, Hiccup was using a stick to draw a sketch of Toothless in the dirt while Gemma was using some reeds to weave rocks and other things into various pieces of jewelry, right now working on a necklace. Toothless began to unwrap himself from his cocoon when he took notice of the peculiar actions of the boy sitting a small distance off. The dragon curiously walked up behind Hiccup and watched as Hiccup continued to draw lines in the dirt, very aware that the black dragon was behind him before Toothless wandered away again.

There was a crack of a tree branch from the direction Toothless had disappeared before he came running back over with a large branch clasped in his jaws. The Night Fury put the branch to the ground before wildly dancing around in circles, the branch drawing deep lines in the dirt as he went. After a few looks at Hiccup while he went when Toothless was finally done, he dropped the branch and sat to proudly admire his work.

Hiccup stared at the markings in the dirt that didn't look like much more than scribbles with a sense of wonder. He took a step forward to see if he could make something of them by looking at it from another direction but the moment his foot touched one of the lines in the dirt he was met by a snarl. Jumping back and wincing, Hiccup looked up to see that Toothless was baring his teeth at Hiccup while a snarl tore through his chest. However, the second that Hiccup jumped backward Toothless snarling stopped as quickly as it started. Looking down at his feet gave Hiccup a clue as to what made the dragon suddenly defensive.

Tentatively, Hiccup lowered his foot back onto the 'drawing' again and was instantly met with the displeased growling from Toothless. In order to make sure his theory was indeed true, Hiccup put his foot down a few more times and each time Toothless snarled at him until he withdrew it. The final time Hiccup put his foot down he missed the line and instead put his foot down between the lines, the black didn't snarl this time in favor of watching him curiously.

Hiccup smiled to himself and Toothless as he continued to figure things out about this dragon. He began to carefully pick his way through the etchings in the ground, each movement coming together in some sort of dance before he was finally out the maze of lines. What he didn't realize at the time though was his line avoiding had backed him directly in front of the Night Fury. Instead of taking advantage of Hiccup's vulnerable position, Toothless merely looked down at him with the same curious eyes he's had since the beginning of their encounter. Taking the almost purring noise emitting from the dragon into account, Hiccup decided to test his luck a bit more and carefully extended his hand towards the dragon.

With each inch the hand moved towards his face, Toothless moved his head back with a warning growl that held much less hostility than before. Toothless, seeing how Hiccup has been able to figure out his feelings up until this point, deemed a warning enough. Hiccup did indeed withdraw his hand from the dragon's face every time but still continued to touch the dragon. Hiccup took a deep breath before doing the ultimate act of trust, he lowered his head with his eyes closed before extending his hand again. Without being able to see the dragon's movements he was putting himself in a very vulnerable position.

Toothless continued to be perplexed by this small human's actions, he wasn't anything like the other humans he had encountered in his life. Maybe that was what caused him to lean his head forward, albeit with a bit of hesitation, and pressed his snout into the small hand. Hiccup gasped slightly when he felt something warm and dry press into the center of his hand. He could only hold off his curiosity more than a few seconds before his eyes flew open to see the black dragon resting gently in his hand, eyes closed. Sensing the change in the human's mood Toothless opened his eyes, a few seconds later Toothless snorted and opened his wings to glide over to the opposite side of the pond.

Gemma only briefly paused it her jewelry making to watch in awe as her friend interacts with the ebony dragon. Sensing some movement from above reminded her that they were both here for one reason, so she resumed her task. She was just finishing up fastening a smooth stone in between the reeds when something bounced off her head and landed in her lap. She had to hold back a startled yelp as to not scare the dragon who she knew had to be hovering above her head, looking down at her lap she was surprised at what she found. Sitting in her lap was a beautiful smooth blue stone that looked like water was moving around its surface as the setting sun danced along its surface. She gently picked up the stone and cradled it in the palm of her hand, looking up she could see the pair of matching blue eyes staring back at her expectantly.

When Gemma continued to remain frozen in place the white dragon snorted out a huff before sending a pointed look at the flower grown, she weaved together before looking back at the stone. Realization slapped her in the face as well as confusion at what she thought the dragon wanted. Slowly, she let her hands weave the stone the dragon had presented to her into her grass bracelet without taking her eyes off of the said dragon. The dragon seemed to let out a hum in encouragement before slowly lowering himself out of the tree and onto the ground in front of her. Deciding to continue with her crazy ideas as they haven't gotten her burned alive yet, held the bracelet out in front of her.

It was the dragon's turn with the look of confusion that was being passed around between the two of them. He moved his nose forward just enough to sniff at the jewelry of grass and stone before tilting his head to the side, not sure what to do next. Gemma followed his previous example and gave his left foreleg a pointed look before gesturing towards the trinket in her hands. Before Gemma could mentally scold herself for putting too much faith in the dragon's ability to understand her vague commands, the ivory dragon slowly reached out the paw Gemma had motioned to. Gemma froze again as the claws hovered near her face and the nose lowered down to sniff at the trinket, one glance up at the dilated pupils let her know that she probably wasn't in danger of losing her hand as long as the mouth stayed closed.

Her fingers weaved the ends of what was supposed to be a necklace but ended up being a bracelet on the dragon before letting her hands fall away. The dragon shook the bracelet a little bit before the sun hitting the stone sent a stray beam into the dragon's eyes causing him to snort in surprise and scratch at the light beam. Gemma couldn't help the chuckle that escaped her which she immediately tried to catch and shove it back down her throat with a quick hand slapped over her mouth. The dragon tilted his head a little bit at her, studying her, before a noise that she could only describe as a warble erupted from his chest. Almost like his version of a laugh. The duo stared at each other for a minute before the dragon snorted once again and spread his wings to take off into the sky.

Hiccup and Gemma joined back up together at the mouth of the cove where they had first entered with matching looks of awe and determination, both knowing that even with the first steps made they had much more progress they would need to make.

"So, we made friends with dragons," Hiccup muttered more to himself than to Gemma.

"Yup," Gemma agreed dazedly.

"We are the first people to see a Night Fury and an Albino Night Fury,"

"Light Fury," Gemma interrupted finally coming out of her daze to see the confused look that Hiccup was pinning her with.

"Why Light Fury?" Hiccup questioned confusedly.

"Because his white scales reflect so much light where Toothless' black scales absorb so much of it," she responded as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. Hiccup just shook his head with fond irritation at his friend's reasoning before asking his next question, "Okay so Light Fury it is but what is his name?"

Gemma paused for a second in deep thought before a smile broke out across her face "Brightscale."

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**That is the end of the chapter my little Dragonlings! I hope everyone enjoyed it! And I am super sorry that it has taken me so long but I hope everyone can understand how life sometimes gets away with you!**

**Question time: Which of the islands that we have been introduced to over the world would you like to live on?**


	6. Chapter 5: First Flight into the Lake

**Chapter 5: First Flight...into the Lake**

**I am really sorry about disappearing for so long...with the state of the world right now I have been super stressed and busy but I have been able to get this chapter out and I think it is a good one.**

**Answer to the question in the previous chapter~ I would really like to be part of Defenders of the Wing Island because I think that you would be able to get a rich history about dragons there!**

**Disclaimer~ I own nothing!**

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The duo spent most of their walk back to the village in relative silence, each pondering all the things they had learned today and how they might want to continue going forward. It was completely dark when they broke through the outskirts of town which made the fire on top of what used to be a catapult stand capture their attention quite easily. Around the fire, they could see Gobber talking to the other teens, and judging at the wild gestures he was making it was probably another one of his stories. Hiccup and Gemma silently crept forward and grabbed a skewer with some fish on it before going to take a seat so they would not interrupt Gobber's story.

"...and with one twist, took my hand and swallowed it whole!" Gobber announced dramatically. "And I saw the look on his face. I was delicious. He must've passed the word along cause it wasn't months before I saw another one of them take my leg." He finished throwing up his pegged leg for his audience to see.

"Isn't it weird to think that your hand was inside a dragon? Like if your mind was still in control of it? You could kill the dragon from the inside by crushing its heart or something." Fishlegs asked while tapping his chicken legs together, his out of left field question earning him a few odd looks from the group while Hiccup and Gemma tried to hide their newfound unease at the subject of dragon killing.

"You're assuming that not only would the stomach acid not eat the hand away to nothing before you could get to the heart, but the dragon wouldn't just chew it up." Ramsey ticked off on his fingers "There's also the factor that you'd be able to even focus on moving it through the pain of having it severed, chewed, and bathed in the stomach acid."

"Killjoy" Tuffnut coughed into his hand which caused Ramsey to roll his eyes.

"I swear I'm so angry right now!" Snotlout growled dramatically looking at Gobber with what was supposed to be a look of determination. "I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot. I'll chop the legs of every dragon I fight...with my face!" He promised while waving his food around.

"It's the wings and the tails you really want," Gobber interjected pulling off the wing of his own chicken. "If it can't fly it can't get away." He continued while Hiccup and Gemma perked up and focused their attention on what he was saying. "A downed dragon is a dead dragon."

Hiccup and Gemma's eyes met on their own accord followed by them sharing a nod before Gemma put her fish down and slipped away from the group.

Gobber got up and stretched with a loud yawn. "Alright I'm off to bed and you should be too. Tomorrow we get to the big boys. Slowly but surely making our way up to the Monstrous Nightmare but who will get the honor of killing it?" Hiccup used the others' excitement about the bigger dragons to slip away from the group as well.

Gobber left the teens to talk amongst themselves about what was happening the following day when Ramsey gently bumped Astrid with his elbow. Looking up at him, she was met with a slow and subtle nod for her to look in the direction off to their left. Looking across the fire she could see that both Hiccup and Gemma were gone, getting up from her seat she headed over the stairs of the catapult to see Hiccup running down the steps to Gemma who was already waiting at the bottom. While her curiosity was piqued as to what the two of them could possibly be running off to do at this time of night, she decided to ignore it for now and return to her seat by the fire.

"So, I take it we're off to find some way to get Toothless to fly on his own?" Gemma asked when Hiccup caught up to her.

"We have to." Hiccup asserted leading the walk down to the forge "He might be safe for now but we aren't going to be able to hide him in the cove forever and from the looks of it if Toothless can't leave then Brightscale isn't either."

"You're right about that," Gemma agreed as they passed through the threshold of the forge and continued into Hiccup's workshop. Hiccup walked over to his sketchbook and opened to the page that had his drawing Toothless' form spread out across the page. Hiccup picked up the charcoal pencil and filled in the other half of the dragon's tail before flipping over to the next empty page to begin the design of a prosthetic tailpiece.

"Did you get a close enough look at the tail to see the proper sizing of the fin?" Gemma questioned looking over Hiccup's shoulder as he finished his diagram. The question gave Hiccup pause as he flipped through his memories to see if he did in fact notice the sizing of the tail fin they were trying to copy.

"Um….now that you mention it….not in great detail," Gemma gave him an exasperated glare "I was a little more concerned about keeping track of where the fire breathing mouth full of dagger-sharp teeth was at the time!" Hiccup defended, to which Gemma rolled her eyes, before taking off his fur vest and laying out on the ground next to him. "Judging how large the fin was compared to me I'd say it was roughly around this size," he explained while folding his vest to the approximate length and width.

"I can work with that," Gemma relented, grabbing a loose sheet of paper, and making her own sketch of the guessed dimensions.

"YOU can work with that?" Hiccup raised quizzed with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms, a stance which Gemma mirrored.

"Yes, ME," she affirmed. "Last time you did anything that didn't involve metal you ended up sewing your vest to Spitelout's axe handle."

Hiccup raised his finger like he was going to reflexively argue but whatever he was about to say died on his lips when he remembered that particular day. "So….what type of fabric are you going to use?"

"I'll have to see what we have lying around," Gemma smirked, "It needs to be flexible but also sturdy."

Hiccup nodded thoughtfully "Let's get to work," and with that, the duo was off to their respective parts of the workshop. The rest of the night was spent beside the burning forge with Hiccup gathering every spare piece of metal he could find, even going so far as to take bolts out of the leftover shields before banging the melted metal into rod-like shapes. With Gemma coming over periodically to measure the rods as she took the leather handles off of the leftover sword and axe handles for the rods to fit in as they connected to the larger piece of leather. By the time dawn broke over Gothi's house on the mountain, the pair had a new prosthetic tailpiece for their ebony scaled friend.

After catching a few hours of sleep, Hiccup and Gemma grabbed the supplies they would need before secretly making their way back to the cove. Hiccup carried a large basket as fish to distract Toothless while Gemma carried the new prosthetic tail they had created.

"So, go over this with me again," Gemma started as she adjusted the fin in her arms "you are counting on the fact that Brightscale didn't attack me in order for him to allow you anywhere Toothless' vulnerable tail. As well as counting on the fact that Toothless didn't attack you so I can keep him distracted long enough for you to attach the fin to his vulnerable tail?"

"That about sums it up." Hiccup answered nonchalantly.

"And even if I manage to distract Toothless, how are you going to make sure Brightscale doesn't try to eat you?"

"You're going to distract him."

"Right...how do you think I should do that?"

"I'm positive you'll find something" before Gemma could argue about that logic, they had reached their destination to where their scaly friends seemed to have been enjoying some sun. When the two small humans came into their line of sight, the dragon's roused from their sun nap.

"Hey, Toothless?" Hiccup called out so they would not end up getting blasted for sneaking up on the dragons.

"Morning Brightscale! Gemma greeted happily trying to keep the Light Fury's attention on her and not on the fish that Hiccup was about to use to distract Toothless.

"We brought breakfast. I hope you're hungry!" Hiccup continued as he set down the basket, he lugged with them on the ground and knocked it over with his foot to make it fall over the ground.

"Well, that is as gross as I imagined." Gemma groaned maneuvering the prosthetic behind her so Hiccup could grab it from her.

"So, we've got some salmon, some nice Atlantic cod," Hiccup explained as Toothless moved in to start smelling the fish. "And a whole smoked eel."

Toothless seemed to have discovered the eel just as Hiccup said something as he frantically backed away from the fish with a low growl. Hiccup moved forward to see what could have caused that reaction when he grabbed the eel both Toothless and Brightscale flared their wings and roared in a panic.

"No, no, no! It's okay!" Hiccup tried to assure the dragons by throwing the eel as far away from the dragons as he could.

"Of all things it is eels that dragons are afraid of?" Gemma

"Yeah, I'm not fond of eel either." Hiccup agreed before nodding at Gemma to let her know that it was time to start the plan. Brightscale gave her the perfect distraction when he dropped the bright blue stone that she made him yesterday in her lap.

"What happened to your bracelet boy?" Gemma questioned picking up the stone and looking to the leg she had attached the stone to previously. "Probably wasn't the smartest idea to expect that it would stay attached with dry grass."

Brightscale warbled a bit before shifting his weight around and giving the stone a pointed look. Gemma understood what he wanted this time, so she took off the leather straps holding her boots on tightly and started to weave them together around the stone.

With Toothless distracted by the fish in the basket and Brightscale distracted by Gemma, Hiccup took this opportunity to slowly creep over behind the black dragon. Gently putting the prosthetic on the ground in position before reaching over to try and put Toothless' tail in it but it was harder than it looked when it moved out of his reach every time that Toothless moved to grab some more fish. Finally, Hiccup gave up being careful and just climbed onto the tail to stop it from moving, where he was then able to quickly strap everything into place. At the sudden weight on his tail, Toothless' head shot up before he wiggled around a bit to see what the strange sensation was.

There we go it's not too bad, it works…" Hiccup muttered to himself as he took a moment to admire his work.

While Hiccup was distracted Toothless seemed to have finally realized what was so familiar about the weight on his tail. The motion of Toothless spreading his wings got the attention of Gemma from where she was finishing up tying the new stone bracelet around Brightscale's leg.

"Oh, this won't end well," Gemma sighed.

"What?" Was all Hiccup got out before he was suddenly airborne with one mighty flap of the Night Fury's wings.

"Uh, Hiccup!" Gemma called out in warning just in time for Hiccup to see that Brightscale had also come to the party when he looked up and came face to face with the other dragon.

Before he could react to it properly, Toothless screamed out in panic as he started falling rapidly out of the sky. Before they could crash into the side of the cove, Hiccup opened the tail as wide as it would go, and with one more flap of his wings, they gained altitude.

"Oh, it's working!" Hiccup cried out happily before pulling the fin to the right so Toothless would bank back towards the cove. "Yes! Yes, we did it!" He called out when he and Toothless passed a cheering Gemma with Brightscale circling around them as he and Toothless flew over the lake.

Toothless now seemed to realize that Hiccup was still holding onto his tail so with one decisive flick of the tail dislodged Hiccup, sending him skipping against the water in one direction while he tried to continue flying the opposite way. Unfortunately, without Hiccup to hold the fin open, it closed and caused him to crash into the lake just like the human.

"That went well as far as trial runs go, at least you know it works." Gemma spat out some water that landed on her, Brightscale landed on the shore next to where Toothless was swimming out.

"Did you see that!" Hiccup cheered, hauling himself out of the water with a big grin on his face.

"It definitely worked," Gemma laughed reaching out a hand to get him out of the water "now we just need to figure out how to make it stay open."

"This is just the beginning!" Hiccup promised.

Hiccup and Gemma had just enough time after their trial run to make it down to the arena to partake in the crazy lesson Gobber undoubtedly had planned for the Viking teens that day. When they got to the arena Gobber handed them each a bucket of water and paired them off with each other.

"Today's lesson is about teamwork," Gobber announced just as the gate holding the Hideous Zippleback behind it exploded and unleashed a thick cloud of green gas across the arena. "A wet head can't light a fire. The Hideous Zippleback is extra tricky. One head breathes gas, the other head, lights it. Your job is to know which is which."

Gobber moved to the outskirts of the arena while his pupils got lost in the green gas of the Zippleback, which caused the teens to go back to back with their partner.

"Razor-sharp serrated teeth that inject venom for pre-digestion. Prefers ambush attacks, crushing its victims…-" Fishlegs was reciting worriedly.

"Would you please stop that?" Hiccup interrupted, getting more nervous with each word coming out of his partner's head.

"The only saving grace about this lunatic training session is that I didn't get stuck with one of them as a partner," Gemma groaned hugging her water bucket to her chest while she motioned to Snotlout and the twins with her head.

"Your high praise fills me with such a warm fuzzy feeling," Ramsey countered dryly from where his back was pressed up against hers.

Snotlout and Tuffnut stood nervously back-to-back, slowly circling around while trying to listen for Zippleback growls.

"If that dragon shows either of its faces, I'm gonna..." before Snotlout could finish his thought he saw a figure in the gas cloud. "There!" He shouted which prompted him and Tuffnut to empty their water buckets onto the shadowy figures….which happened to be Ruffnut and Astrid instead of the dragon they were looking for. Snotlout said, pointing at the figure in the gas. He and Tuffnut threw their water only to end up soaking Ruffnut and Astrid.

"Hey! It's us, idiots!" Ruffnut yelled, glaring at the duo of idiots in front of them.

"Your butts are getting bigger. We thought you were a dragon!" Tuffnut laughed hysterically.

"Not that there's anything wrong with a dragon-esque figure." Snotlout tried to soothe in order to win some points with Astrid.

Snotlout was interrupted when Astrid clocked him in the face with a nasty right hook which knocked him to the ground with Tuffnut following soon after when his sister threw her bucket at his face. As soon as Tuffnut hit the ground he disappeared into the green mist with such force that it knocked his helmet off.

"Wait!" Astrid ordered cautiously before bending down to pick up her bucket. Before she could do anything with it though a tail snapped out of the mist to knock her and Ruffnut over, causing the water to spill on the ground. Gemma and Ramsey turned around to help but they too were thrown to the ground by what felt like a wing being flung out at them, their water also spilling to the ground. After those two attacks occurred in such quick succession it left just Hiccup and Fishlegs standing, who were quickly passed by a frantic Tuffnut as he ran out of the mist.

"Oh, I am hurt! I am very hurt!" He hollered in pain as he ran.

"Chances of survival are dwindling into single digits now..." Fishlegs mumbled. In response, a green head that belonged to the Hideous Zippleback slithered out of the gas towards Fishlegs. Who in turn, started to hyperventilate before throwing his bucket of water at it which caused it to open its mouth and let the green gas start falling out "Oh wrong head." Fishlegs whimpered before being enveloped in the gas.

"Fishlegs!" Gobber yelled out in worry but was overshadowed by Fishlegs one screaming as he ran past Hiccup.

Hiccup whirled around with a yelp as the second of the dragon's heads made its way out of the fog, sparking threateningly at Hiccup.

"Now Hiccup!" Gobber ordered, Hiccup heaved the bucket in his hands and let the momentum carry the water into the air towards the opposing dragon….only for it to hit the ground instead.

"Oh, come one." Hiccup groaned.

The Zippleback advanced on him so quickly that it knocked Hiccup to the ground with both heads glowering at him angrily. The head-on the right unleashed wisps of gas while the head on the right started sparking menacingly once again.

"Hiccup!" Gobber yelled out again while he made a move to go towards Hiccup.

As Hiccup stood up the Hideous Zippleback started retreating backward instead of continuing with its attack like everyone in the arena thought it was going to.

"Back! Back!" Hiccup commanded holding out one of his hands as he continued to push the large dragon backward into its cell. "Don't make me tell you again! That's right back into your cage and think about what you've done."

When Hiccup forced the dragon far enough back into the cage, he opened up his vest to reveal what the Hideous Zippleback senses. A striped eel. When he was really out of view, he took the eel off his shoulder into the cage with the dragon, which caused the dragon to cower in the corner. When he was sure that the dragon was not going to be coming out again, he closed the gates before turning around to see Gobber and his classmates giving him a look of surprise. Gemma could do nothing but try and contain the smug look that spread across her face.

"Uh, okay, so are we done? Cause I've got some things I need to uh yeah… see you all tomorrow?" Hiccup sputtered out quickly. "Gem would you mind coming to help me out."

Gemma nodded in agreement before she followed Hiccup out of the arena, leaving the rest of the Vikings open-mouthed. "They're going to accuse you of some sort of Loki tricks you know?" Gemma chuckled lightly as they walked.

"With all the stuff we can learn from Toothless and Brightscale we finally have a key to making training as painless for both us and the dragons as possible." Hiccup explained excitedly.

"We also learned that in order for Toothless to fly you have to be involved somehow," Gemma noted.

"There's no time like the present!" Hiccup cheered running off towards the forge to grab supplies.

"Right behind you!" Gemma called out with a laugh as she ran after him.

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**And there you have it! I hope that you had as much fun reading this as I had writing it! With the way the world is now, I will try and upload a bit more frequently than once every few months but not the once a week I wanted it to be...**

**On to the question!: What is a name you would give a Deadly Nadder?**


	7. Chapter 6: How to Trick Your Classmates

**Chapter 6: How to Trick Your Classmates**

**I'm back everyone! I am really sorry for the wait but with everything being shut down my place of employment actually got busier than ever. I hope that there are still people who still want to read the story...**

**Answer to the question from the last chapter~ I would name my Deadly Nadder...Thorntail!**

**Disclaimer! I own nothing!**

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After running around the forge grabbing notebooks, ropes, various tools, and large pieces of leather they stopped by the docks to get two more baskets of fish for their scaled friends than they were off to the cove.

"The easiest way for me to be able to help Toothless fly would be with me on his back instead of his tail," Hiccup was explaining to Gemma as he adjusted the basket on his back.

"Which means making a saddle would be the most efficient way to keep you on his back and in control of the tail fin," Gemma agreed while going over what the best saddle designs would be.

"I'm thinking I can try using a rope to keep the fin open," Hiccup added "at least until we can find a better way."

"We will also need to get them to the point of trust where we can touch them from any angle whether they can see us or not," Gemma stated "You need to be able to work on the tail without either dragon thinking harm might come to Toothless if they're not looking."

"There's also the need for them to get used to having something on their back and the straps keeping it there before we put a person on there," Hiccup responded before looking up at Gemma after he climbed down into the cove. "I can only assume all the leather is to make Brightscale a saddle too?"

"Naturally!" Gemma replied chipperly, handing down the supplies she was carrying down to Hiccup before following suit, only pausing long enough to stab her weapons into the grassy entrance. "At least if he'll let me. He's going to follow Toothless whenever you guys go flying and you could always use backup if something goes wrong up there."

"No time like the present to get started with all this," Hiccup stated before turning over to the middle of the cove where they left the dragons earlier in the day. "Toothless, come and get it!"

"Brightscale, soups on!" Gemma joined in, it only took a few seconds before a tornado of black and white scales nearly knocked the two of them over. The two Furies managed to stop right before they knocked into the baskets of fish while licking their chops at the smell of the fish.

"I think the first thing we should do is spread out all the supplies we bought and let them sniff so they can learn that it isn't a threat," Hiccup explained walking around the baskets so the dragons couldn't get to them yet.

"Then use the fish as a reward so they start thinking of it as something that gives them food! Got it!" Gemma exclaimed when she understood Hiccup's plan, she slowly but methodically spread out everything they brought out in front of the dragons.

Toothless and Brightscale looked at each other in confusion, warbled back and forth to each other, before pinning their emerald and sapphire gazes to humans in front of them. With some looks of encouragement, they turned to the items in front of them with curiosity before slowly moving forward to investigate. Sniffing the notebooks, rolling aside the charcoal pencils before recoiling after finding out they are not good for licking, they made their way through most of the items with relative ease. However, when Toothless was walking over to see some of the tools one of the ropes got tangled around his back legs causing him to freak out and try to jump away. The sudden movement meant that Toothless jumped into Brightscale, who was sticking his head in the pile of leather, causing him to also freak out and try and run but his face was covered.

"No, no, no it's okay! It won't hurt you!" Hiccup reassured stepping up behind the dragon that was getting himself tangled further within the rope. "I got you." Hiccup carefully unwound the rope from Toothless' legs. Toothless jumped away with a hiss and snarled at the rope from where Hiccup had placed it on the ground, Hiccup patted his head encouragingly so Toothless went forward carefully. When he was within distance, Toothless started stomping aggressively on the rope and snorted at it when he deemed it was no longer a threat. Hiccup rewarded Toothless' bravery with a large halibut which the black dragon snacked on happily.

"Easy boy!" Gemma cooed snatching the leather off of Brightscale's face before he could start blasting away at their supplies. "See! It is harmless!" she plopped it on her own head and spun in circles, when Brightscale huffed in disagreement, Gemma had an idea. Taking one of the salmon from the basket she rubbed the fish all over the leather before holding it out to the dragon. Brightscale's nose perked up and he started snuffling at the leather Gemma held out in front of her with new interest. While Gemma had hoped that he would not be scared of the leather, what she wasn't expecting was for him to rub his entire head in it.

"That's another way to do it," Hiccup remarked appreciatively while he fed Toothless another fish. "Let me try something." Hiccup grabbed one of the smaller leather pieces and started running it along Toothless' scales, pausing for an extra moment wherever Toothless seemed most uncomfortable so reward him with some fish and continue rubbing until the dragon relaxed. Hiccup repeated this process with some rope so that Toothless would become accustomed to everything they thought they would need to create the saddles.

"That is a good size place for a saddle," Hiccup stated motioning to the empty space between where Toothless' cranial plates ended, and his dorsal plates began. He took the largest piece of leather and draped it over the Night Fury's back before giving him a few more fish to keep him still while Hiccup traced a general outline of a saddle.

"Brightscale really isn't a big fan of leather under his chin" Gemma muttered to herself when Brightscale snorted away the leather strap for the fourth time "and due to his cranial and dorsal fin being connected all the way down means I'm going to need the saddle to be a bit elevated and padded."

The duo continued like that for a few more hours until they had all the measurements that they would need and the dragon's had gone through both baskets of fish, the humans gathered their supplies, bid their scaled friends goodbye and continued on to the forge to get working the saddles. They worked in relative silence with Hiccup forming the connecting rings that would serve to hold all the leather straps that Gemma was busy hammering holes into before going back and threading them all together.

Before training the next morning, they carried their creations down to the cove underarm, discussing the best ways to actually get the saddles on said dragons.

"Think they'll actually cooperate with us?" Gemma inquired as she dropped down into the cove after Hiccup.

"The odds of that are probably pretty low," Hiccup answered as he adjusted the saddle under his arm.

"Figures." Gemma snorted picking up her own saddle.

Toothless and Brightscale were waiting for their humans in the center of the cove with anticipation of more fish, their ears perked up and their heads cocked when they noticed the strange brown bundles held in the human's hands. Hiccup held up the saddle for Toothless to see, to which the Night Fury responded by crouching down for a second before darting forward away from Hiccup.

"Hey!" Hiccup exclaimed, taking off after Toothless, all the excitement got to Brightscale who scampered after Hiccup and Toothless with a warble, which caused Gemma to put her saddle down and join the fray.

"Okay this is getting us nowhere" Gemma huffed stopping the chase and putting her hands on her knees to hold herself up.

"I am open to suggestions!" Hiccup called from where he was still chasing after Toothless albeit at a slower pace.

Gemma paused for a minute, looking back over to where her saddle and the basket of fish lay before an idea popped into her head. "I've got it!" She cheered jogging over to basket, remembering Brightscale's reaction from the day before, she took out a large fish from basket and slathered it all over the leather of the saddle. "Brightscale!" the ivory dragon came to a halt before whirling around to look at the ashen haired female in curiosity, the smell of fish got his attention and he bounded over to Gemma. He started rubbing his body all over the leather just like Gemma had hoped, when he rubbed his back under the saddle Gemma took the opportunity to drop it on the dragon before reaching under him and securing the straps.

"Write a note so we don't forget to figure out why they do that" Hiccup stated before following Gemma's example, Toothless was also curious about the fish smell and also rubbed his body against the leather. In one fluid movement Hiccup had the saddle placed on Toothless' back, the straps connected in place and had himself placed in the saddle before he could talk himself out of it. When Toothless didn't immediately knock him to the ground he took it as a sign to continue by having Gemma take a rope and tying one end to the tailpiece before handing the other end to Hiccup to control.

"Are you sure that is going to work?" Gemma questioned.

"We've got to start somewhere right?" Hiccup responded.

"Whenever you say that one of us ends up with our face in the dirt" Gemma countered dryly.

"Oh hush, just take some notes about the things we need to improve on" Hiccup sighed, Gemma gave him a sarcastic thumbs up from where she had managed to sit on Brightscale so he could get used to the weight.

Hiccup urged Toothless upwards, after a few experimental flaps and some light tugs on the rope, Hiccup was able to keep the tailfin open enough to where he and Toothless were able to glide gently over the pond in the middle of the cove. Upon coming to the wall of the cove Toothless tried to bank left with Hiccup following suit but he pulled the rope so hard that the two of them went sailing into the pond with a scream.

"Told him yanking on the rope wouldn't work," Gemma snickered. "Looks like some sort of harness would be beneficial for staying on wouldn't be a bad idea either."

The previous evening was spent making Hiccup a brown vest with rings attached to it that could be attached to the hook on the saddle, while Gemma settled for a type of belt that would keep her attached but lower on the saddle. They also added metal loops for Toothless to put his forelegs through as well as a strap across his chest and one under his chin to keep the saddle from moving around. Brightscale's saddle was adjusted so that along with the strap that connected behind his forelegs across his stomach, they put another set of straps that formed a Y across his chest. After giving the boys their basket of fish, Hiccup decided to attach the rope to his ankle and try to work the tailfin that way while Gemma worked on padding the saddle more so she wasn't squishing the Light Fury's dorsal fin. Hiccup's ride was going well so far, Toothless was gaining altitude and speed faster than Hiccup could keep up so he ended up preemptively yanking the rope with his foot and sending the two of them careening into a field atop the south-facing cliff.

Gemma took a chance to spur Brightscale forward, he gently took off towards the fallen duo, the sudden movement nearly knocked her out of her seat and she was only able to hold on by latching her arms around his neck and squeezing her legs against his sides. The sight that greeted her when they made it to the top of the cliff was Hiccup trudging through the tall grass towards Toothless who was rolling around frantically in the grass with a euphoric look on his face.

"What is that stu-ah!" Gemma couldn't get the rest of her sentence out as Brightscale jolted forward, slamming into the field with a flop that sent Gemma sprawling to the ground when he began to also roll around.

"I have no idea what this is." Hiccup replied to Gemma's unfinished question while he pulled her up off the ground. "But would you look at the effect that it has on the dragons?"

"It completely debilitates them but in an almost pleasant way," Gemma noted while Hiccup pulled off a bunch in his hand "Wouldn't that stuff be helpful in the training."

"Speaking of which," Hiccup started "training starts soon, and we should head back."

"Good call." Gemma agreed.

It took some persuasion and the promise of fish to convince the two dragons to return to the cove but eventually they were able to gather the saddles, stow them away in the forge, gather their weapons and head down to the arena for Dragon Training. True to Gobber's training method, he just opened the door to the Gronckle's cage and let his students scatter to avoid the lava spitting dragon. The Gronckle slammed its head into Tuffnut, knocking his spear and shield out of his hands and sending him flying into the opposite wall before it whirled around and started speeding towards Hiccup. On a whim, Hiccup shielded his face while he extended a handful of what he decided to call Dragon Nip, out towards the charging dragon. The Gronckle stopped flying immediately and came to a skidding halt right before it ran into Hiccup, Hiccup took the plant and rubbed it all over the dragon's nose causing it to roll over happily.

After training was over, Snotlout, the Twins, and Fishlegs were swarming Hiccup as they all walked back into town with Astrid and Ramsey followed a pace behind, Astrid suspicious and resentful of Hiccup's recent success while Ramsey just studied his fellow teen in front of him.

"I've never seen a Gronckle do that before!" Snotlout cheered but before he could say anything else Gemma came shoving between the rest of the teens.

"Hiccup!" Gemma "Did you forget the Gobber wanted us to start on the sword sharpening?"

"Oh, you're right! Sorry, everyone!" Hiccup ran to catch up with Gemma before shouting back at the others. "See you guys tomorrow."

Instead of going to the forge, they made their way to the cove along with their customary baskets of fish, though today Gemma decided to try and see how bringing her weapons into the cove would go. Aside from a few hisses in the beginning followed by some curious sniffs from the dragons they didn't seem to have adverse reactions to the blades. It wasn't long before the reptiles were relaxing, with Gemma working on massaging different parts of Brightscale's body so there weren't any bad reactions while Hiccup was busy scratching Toothless behind the ear flap. Toothless let out a purr in satisfaction when Hiccup started to descend down his neck a bit before finally settling to scratch beneath his jaw, when Hiccup touched that spot the Night Fury crumpled to the ground with a happy whimper.

"What just happened?" Hiccup asked looking down at his hands in wonder before sharing a confused look with Gemma who could only shrug in response.

"I wonder?" Gemma pondered before running her hands underneath Brightscale's jaw and added a bit of pressure, the white dragon let out a similar whimper before he dropped to the ground as well.

"Add that to the book?" Hiccup inquired.

"Way ahead of you!" Gemma responded, pulling out her notebook and scratching away at it with her charcoal pencil.

When it was time for them to go to the arena for training, they found that they were facing the Deadly Nadder again, the bipedal dragon ran straight to the nearest human target who happened to be Astrid with Hiccup slightly behind her. Astrid swung her axe and the charging blue dragon which unfortunately bounced harmlessly off the dragon's nasal bone as it continued forward. Astrid jumped out of the way and ran behind the dragon to the other side of the arena where her axe landed meanwhile, the Nadder continued to charge at Hiccup but stopped right before it ran into him. The dragon turned its head to see if he was still there since he remained unmoving in its blind spot, the Nadder's cranial spines perked up when there was a sharp battle cry from where Astrid was previously seen. Astrid started charging with her axe raised high above her head, Hiccup started carding his fingers over the scales on the Nadder's neck until he found the spot under the chin that incapacitated both Toothless ad Brightscale the day before. Sure enough, the blue dragon was peacefully on the ground before Astrid could reach the duo and swing her axe on the dragon's head. The crowd that had gathered during the session in the arena has since followed Hiccup into the Great Hall, when Hiccup went to sit at the table next to Gemma the rest of the teens swarmed him, each shoving each other to get the remaining spot on his left side. All except, Astrid who slammed her mug down on the table in front of her in frustration with Ramsey patting her on her shoulder reassuringly.

With the dragon's acceptance with their tools in the cove Hiccup and Gemma were able to continue making improvements to the saddles without having to do it in the middle of the night in the forge. Gemma was fastening the handles to the top of her saddle while Hiccup was in the middle of hammering out the shape for the pedals for his when their attention was moved to where both Toothless and Brightscale were chasing the beam of light reflecting off of Hiccup's hammer.

"They sure are entertained by the smallest things," Gemma noted with a chuckle.

"Never know when that would come in handy," Hiccup pondered.

In the afternoon, Hiccup and the others were all lined up in front of the door of a dragon that they haven't seen up until then with their weapons at the ready, none of them sure what they were about to face.

"Meet the Terrible Terror!" Gobber called from the far side of the arena.

The cage door began to rumble, causing all the teens to tense up into a ready position but instead of the whole metal door opening, the little flap on the bottom left side opened instead. Out ran a small bright green dragon with deep red stripes and dorsal plating down its spine as well as deep red horns coming off the side of its head along with big yellow eyes, which it stuck its tongue out and swiped across one of its eyes.

"Ha! It's like the size of my-" Tuffnut started to say before his sentence was cut off when the little Terrible Terror launched itself at him and dug its teeth into his nose. "Aah! Get it off!" He screamed but the other teens ran for cover instead of helping him.

Hiccup maneuvered the metal center of his shield into the sun so that it would reflect a beam of light like it did earlier in the cove, just like with the Furies the little Terror started chasing the dot wherever Hiccup moved it, even following it right back into his cage.

"Wow, he's better than you ever were," Tuffnut muttered to Astrid while rubbing his nose Terror bit him, Astrid sent him a glare that could melt steel and promised retribution.

"You'll probably need this to stop the swelling," Ramsey sighed, holding up a jar.

Tuffnut cast Ramsey a confused look "Isn't that a bit much for my nose?"

"It won't be," that was all could be said before Astrid swung her fist into Tuffnut's face in a vicious right hook in punishment for his earlier comment before picking her up axe and storming out of the arena.

Astrid went right into the forest and started throwing her axe into every available tree with an intense ferocity while Ramsey studied her quietly from atop a boulder, her rage was only interrupted when Hiccup and Gemma happened to wander past her destruction sight. The two of them were carrying something in bundles and froze when they saw both Astrid and Ramsey staring at them, there was a short pause before the two of them disappeared behind a boulder.

Astrid reacted quickly to try and follow them while motioning for Ramsey to follow her but as soon as they made it around the boulder and saw that the ones they were trying to follow had already disappeared. Slamming her fist into a nearby tree in frustration she had no other choice but to continue on with her training while Ramsey took up his position on the boulder again.

When they got to the cove they wasted no time laying out everything they would need to fit Toothless with his new tail fin, while Gemma was laying out the baskets of fish in front of the dragons while Hiccup was running a final line of rope from the tail itself to the stirrup that would allow Hiccup to control it with his foot.

"That was way too close!" Gemma growled in irritation "they could have very easily followed us here." .

"That is definitely not a problem we need right now." Hiccup agreed "we'll have to be more careful when they're around."

After making sure that everything on the saddle was connected like it needed to be before making their way to a higher part of the cove where there was a consistent stream of air battering the cliffside. Hiccup tied the front of Toothless' saddle to a stump before fitting himself into the saddle. He had Toothless open his wings and practiced moving the tailfin into different positions with his foot and then writing down what happened on the cheat sheet attached to the saddle in front of him. It took some practice for him to read the muscles in Toothless' back as he adjusted his wings and real tailfin so that Hiccup could accurately move the fake one accordingly so that they landed gently on the ground.

They were about to practice again when an exceptionally strong gust of wind slammed against the two of them so hard that it snapped the rope and caused them to go flying back into Brightscale and Gemma who were positioned behind them. The four of them landed in a pile of the ground, painfully they extracted their limbs from one another but discovered a problem when Toothless stood up and Hiccup was still attached to him by his harness.

"Oh, great." Hiccup sighed in defeat.

"I don't suppose you would've brought that tool with you today?" Gemma pleaded while she covered her eyes with her hand.

"Afraid not..." Hiccup responded, giving the connecting strap a few more experimental tugs.

By the time the two of them made it back to the village it was dark which ended up working out to their advantage, though they were almost caught by one of the guards patrolling the square while the two teens scrambled to hide the dragons..

"Hiccup, Gemma." Algon greeted with a nod as he continued to walk by.

"You couldn't have left him in the cove?" Hiccup griped as the two of them tried to sneak both Toothless and Brightscale into the forge but ended up knocking over a bucket.

"Why don't you tell him that!" Gemma snapped back in a whisper. "It isn't like I can keep the dragon that can fly in a cove he can easily get out of."

"Let's just hurry and get this over with," Hiccup sighed as they spread out looking for the tool that they would need while at the same time trying to keep the curious dragons quiet and out of sight.

"Hey, is anyone in there?" Astrid's voice called from the night.

" Oh, just great…" Gemma growled, "You keep working on getting yourself out of this mess while I keep her distracted."

Gemma opened the serving window, jumped over the sill to the outside and slammed it behind her before meeting Astrid's suspicious look with a glare of her own.

"What are you doing?" Astrid demanded.

"I didn't know I needed a reason to come to my place of employment." Gemma sneered.

"I normally don't care what people are doing but you two have been especially weird lately." Astrid accused.

"And it still isn't any of your business." Gemma challenged crossing her arms over her chest.

The two girls stood there glaring at each other, neither giving an inch while Hiccup rushed around inside trying to free himself from his harness. His efforts were cut short when Toothless and Brightscale noticed a sheep staring at them worriedly, rightfully so it would seem like the two of them moved forward to go get it.

"No boys, leave the sheep alone, bad dragons." Hiccup groaned, Toothless ignored him and continued to move forward which caused Hiccup to be dragged forward while he was trying to hold onto Brightscale.

"What was that?" Astrid asked when the crashing noise could be heard from within the forge.

"I have something in the forge," Gemma responded hotly. "Now if that is all you wanted please leave.'' With that, she stormed around the side of forge and when she was out of Astrid's eye line she jumped onto Brightscale's back and followed Hiccup back to the cove.

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**And that is a wrap! Please let me know what you think and if there are things you would possibly like to see in the chapters going forward.**

**Question~ What family would you want to be a part of?**


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